Lurker > Suprak_the_Stud

Still Playing: Spellcorked! (Finale)

More Thoughts:
-Potion order: Strong strength and medium courage, strong strength and medium love. Ok. Um. I think strength is new?
-I got more spam. This one is telling me about harpies in my shoes. Im less interested in this than the hot single witches in my area, I got to be honest.
-The two cat things start talking about ordering drugs. This is another game where the funny segments are really starting to wear thin quickly.
-UGH THE STUPID NEW INGREDIENT IS ANOTHER RANDOM RUNE THING. Im never going to get strong strength from this.
-It is a bearpaw cactus, or something like that. I hate you, stupid cactus.
-Well I cant get strong strength either time and not just because thats a dumb pairing of words.
-These random ones are no fun.
-Honest spoilers none of them are really fun at the moment. This is wearing thin fassssst.
-Uh oh I didnt play for like three days and now I cant remember what any of the stupid potions do. -Luckily I got some detailed notes up above so I guess Ill dig through that.
-Three requests for today: Medium Strength, Weak Joy and Weak Caution, and Weak Armor.
-New ingredient is dragon scales and they are processed just the way as the coffee beans and the dewdrop berries. Wow they really only did have three ideas here, huh?
-Yeah I guessed which end of the spectrum was wisdom and which was armor so I get one of the orders wrong. Cool
-Whatever. Next days orders: Strong armor and strong water, medium joy and weak spirit, medium fluff and weak water.
-And the next ingredient cloud lavender is one of those pick the runes at random and hope you do it right the first time because its all arbitrary ones. I hate those more than the other things I also hate in this game.
-Man this game is potion making and some boring messages from your girlfriend pig monster who is off on a much more interesting quest. She keeps emailing you about this cool stuff she's seeing and then meanwhile I'm stuck making the fortieth of the same potion. TAKE ME WITH YOU.
-Oh, and then also your hideous cat monsters sometimes try to say something funny. And thats the whole game. I hate it. I HATE IT.
-Next day: Strong joy and weak strength, weak spirit, medium misery.
-No new ingredients today so it is even easier than the other days. Im playing this game in like twenty parts so far just because it is so boring Im having a hard time stringing long play sessions together.
-Strong caution, Weak courage and medium fluff, Weak sleep, Weak magic. Im not even doing full sentences anymore. These are just the orders I need to make.
-Yknow, I have gone two more days without new ingredients. Please add the ones Im missing. I know this game wont end until you do and I CANT TAKE ANY MORE.
-Strong growth, Medium scream, Medium fire and weak spirit
-New item: ghost peppers. Hm I wonder where I can get the fire from
-Oh the high processed peppers give me curse and not fire. Duh whod I not figure that out from the start???
-Oh cool glitches. So it started a bit ago and every time I opened the computer, it would kind of freeze and Id have to back out and go back into the computer to be able to select things. This time, the bottle you pour into disappears entirely. Its just gone. I could make the potion but when I went to wrap it there was just a empty fill in where the bottle should go. THEN after the third order of the day the game just dies entirely, crashes, and forces me to go back in. No wonder they couldnt do more than three mini-games this thing was hanging by a thread this whole time.
-Only two today: strong life and medium life. These potions are giving them LIFE and I am here for it.
-Noooo the phoenix feather ingredient is another one of those random totem mixing ones. I take it back I am not here for it.
-The crazy thing is even with the new items, the actual totems remain the same and once you use them you have a little cartoon of what each one does. Fun idea but the cartoon is always, always the same. So Ive done like four different ones now and have to just sit through the cartoon even though Ive seen in like 156 times by now.
-Well I mess them both up due to randomg guessing. Always a fun time.
-Next day: Weak scream and medium growth, medium vigor, weak sleep and weak water
-Big day the next day: Strong water and strong spirit, Medium spirit, Weak strength and medium misfortune, Strong fortune. Im afraid doing four at once might put me to sleep but here we go.
-While you were making portions, I was studying the blade. This is the funniest line in the game so far, if you want an assessment of how not-amused I am.
-I go through like four more days with no notes because honestly Ive run out of stuff to say and keeping track of what I need to make isnt interesting enough to keep doing it.
-I DO find out that the names of effects are written in the spellbook but it is in the smallest, least legible text ever so I did not see it until literally just now.
-Seriously go up to the pictures above an look at the grimoire for the words if you want to do a sudden vision check.
-I get all the ingredients, and there really are only three varieties of games here. The smush one, the cut one, and the oops I hope you picked the right random totem one.
-It doesnt help that for two of the games, one of the extremes is literally just dont do anything. Like you just skip it sometimes so you dont even do the game part.
-They messed up on truth and amnesia on the final ingredient haha. Like the top part of the spell book says truth and the bottom says amnesia but the requirements are actually flipped. I literally just noticed this thing at the exact time the game fucks it up. Do I have superpowers?
-Well this keeps on going for a while, but after like 85 potions or so I max out my Welp rank and get an email saying something along the lines of the game is over. Cool, I guess.
-That is serious btw, you get an email from the developers that is basically like hey youve seen everything although maybe there are a couple more emails if you keep playing haha maybe who knows. Im good. Im not doing more of this for maybe two more emails with unfunny jokes I dont care about.
-Well, thats it I guess. Definitely disappointing and I kind of hate how lazy the game feels. Like, there are only three minigame styles for the 13 ingredients. You get repeat email types too. Like they reuse the same ten or so customer names and even the email templates repeat really frequently. You couldnt have spent some time to make each one unique?
-Kinda glad to be moving on. This wasnt the worst game on the Playdate but its up there with most boring.

Time Played: Honestly...five to six hours? It feels long but that is in part because of how much of it is the exact same thing. Howlongtobeat dot com has it at six, which is interesting because I think that's the longest game on there for the Playdate so far and also who the hell is updating that site for Playdate games?
High Score: Over 500 eggs means my level is maxed out. First you get the eggs. Then you get the power. Then you get the pig women.
Beaten? Yes.
Grade: This is in the 2-3 range. It shouldn't be that low because it has a really good level of polish to it but it is just whatever the antithesis to fun is.
Favorite Part So Far: The game starts with that sick cat animation and its all downhill from there. Honestly the animations here are super impressive all around. The totem one repeats a millions times, but the little animations for it are really good!

-I also get an email from my old professor! They love I opened my own shop but think I would be more successful if I moved back to the city. Pfft I can run my email business anywhere, boomer.
-Well I grab the Moonbeam concentrate. Hope I can use this thing right
-Er. So for this ingredient I need to pick three out of six possible runes. They add or subtract one, two, or three. I have no way to guess what does what at first so this first thing is going to be messed up. Sorry person asking for a potion.
-Yeah I did weak magic instead of strong spirit. Oops.
-Ok but that means I have a better chance of doing strong magic for the second request. I just need to randomly pick the right one out of these three since I know what two of the magic totems are
-YES I PICK RIGHT. THANK YOU WEIRD DEER HEAD I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU
-Welp gives me one glowing review and one middling one. Look, I didnt know how to make your stupid Strong Spirit thing, ok? Cut me some slack.
-Weak caution? HOW THE HELL DO I MAKE A WEAK CAUTION POTION STOP THROWING NEW THINGS AT ME WITHOUT TELLING ME STUFF
-I have a new Welp ranking: Hatchling. What does it do? Nothing.
-Ok and I also need a medium courage potion. So weak caution and medium courage. Ugh. Hopefully I can get one of the two right.
-Well I have a new ingredient too: Morale Mushrooms. Hopefully Im not just picking stuff at random this time.
-I get a spam message. Meet witchy singles in your area. Hey uh yes how do I meet these witchy singles and how to I give them my social security information?
-This one is easier because you are just using the crank to cut mushrooms. I nail both orders because I am a potion expert.
-Next day order: STRONG WATER. Ah yes. Unlike that weak water. None of that diluted nonsense. I know what I always get at a restaurant. Hey waiter gimme a water. Strong. Straight up. On the rocks.
-Another email from Professor Sage being all oh boo hoo I dont know if your business is a good idea wah wah. Whatever, lady. She does say she hopes I at least have strong familiars. Do two weird looking cats that sit around complaining all day count?
-Good familiars. Pssssh. She ought to know that you have the BEST familiars. The cat makes three different faces for each of those sentences and I hate every single one of them.
-Well the new ingredient seems to be the same mini-game as the coffee. Ran out of ideas after three huh?
-I do luckily guess right and assume doing nothing gives me the water so hooray for random guessing.
-THREE ORDERS ON THIS DAY? Cmon guys. Im not a machine.
-Uh I need to take notes. I need 1) Weak water, medium sleep. 2) Strong love, weak magic.
3) Medium scream. Uh. Ok. I know how to do like two of those things.
-Well the new ingredient is mandragora leaves, so Im assuming the highly processed thing gives scream and the low processed option is sleep.
-Yeah Im right. So that gets me the medium scream. So for weak water/medium sleep Ill need the berries and the leavesandyay! Nailed it. Then that leaves strong love, weak magic. Magic is from the moonbeam concentrate, so love must be from the berries, but highly processed since low processes gives me water.
-Sorry none of this is interesting but Im needing to take notes to get the potions right so Im doing it here.
-Yep thats right. Hooray Im 3/3.
-I have to say, Im glad Im taking these notes because the grimoire is largely useless. You get little symbols to show what each thing does, but I cant remember what the symbols are a lot of the time. Oh uh are these couple of lines mean magic or courage? Someone is taking shorthand for me and I dont know what it means, help.
-Im level three on welp now! What does this get me? Again, nothing.
-I got to be honestIm not crazy about this so far. I thought the potion prep was going to be like Warioware style minigames but it feels like Im just doing chores. The challenge comes mostly from trying to remember what potion gives what effect.
-I'm calling it for now. This isn't a strong start for a game I was looking forward to. I'm genuinely bored already and the fact that they started repeating mini-games after three is not a good sign.
-Still that walking cat animation from the starting screen was top notch A+ work on whoever animated that
-But then like D- work on the actual "style" I guess? I had the cat faces and I'm not even sure what Lune is supposed to be. A rabbit thing, maybe? Like...it is well drawn and impressively animated, but I just kind of hate how stuff looks? Specifically character work is what I'm talking about here. Like I said the character portraits are so bad that none of the same pictures of the same character look like that character (particularly for the two cats).

Time Played: Probably 90 minutes or so
High Score: A full 6/6 eggs on so many potions. Trust me, that's an impressive number of eggs!
Beaten? No and I still have a bunch of ingredients to unlock so I don't think I'm close.
Grade: Uh I don't really like it. I think this was supposed to be a "relax and vibe" kinda game, but it isn't fun enough for that. This is vibing the same way checking the inventory at an Amazon warehouse is vibing.
Favorite Part So Far: OPENING CAT ANIMATION. So good. So fluid. It is impressive how some people figure out to do stuff like this with such a limited console like this.

Currently Playing: Spellcorked!

What Is It? A WarioWare game if a WarioWare game only had three mini-games and it felt like work.

Gameplay Overview: You check your email and get a handful of orders asking you for a specific potion. The you go to your ingredient shelf and pick the ingredients you need. The you go to your crafting table and go through one of three mini-games to process the ingredients. Then you go to sleep to do it all again. It is all the fun of running a small business and getting stuck doing routine labor, without the annoying part where you get paid for it.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/spellcorked/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d312dd34.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e3eb356f.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/07f155e3.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/ac383044.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/58995318.png

Thoughts:
-Ok I took my medicine in the form of a calculator app. Now time for something I actually want to play. Spellcorked tends to get high praise on the discord AND is a season 1 game which tends to be a good sign. Im a bit sad because I only have 5 season 1 games left and Im going to be doing exclusively catalogue games pretty soon.
-Well the opening animation in this game is already better than like twenty or so games Ive played already. There's this cat that walks across the screen and the fact it got animated on the Playdate is genuinely shocking.
-Well, todays the day. Thats the same thing I said when I decided today was the day Id be playing this game!
-Oh, todays the day the shop opens for business. So am I some sort of fantasy shopkeeper in this game? I literally know nothing about it other than the title and the title card which looked fantasy inspired.
-Also they make an offhanded mention that they dont have all their inventory. Hey uh not to rain on your parade but thats like the number one thing a store needs, friend.
-Congratulations, Lune! AHHH IT IS A CAT MONSTER!
-Therestheres two of them! That is two cat monsters too many, friends.
-Lune appears to know them as they thanks the two of them and proudly proclaims this is their first step to becoming a witch. Well uh good luck but maybe shoo the cat monsters out first.
-My crystal cube starts flashing, which is my computer like thing. I got a message in my eMeow Inbox? I dont know what sort of pun thats even supposed to be.
-Oh like email I guess. Why the hell is it cat themed other than lol cats humor circa 2009.
-Ok so my options from the menu are to check my Welp reviews (which is sort of like a scoreboard/progress tracker on the potions Ive created), options (which include music, sound and uh delete my entire save file), credits, and finally the aforementioned email. Sorry. eMeow Inbox. Whatever that means.
-First email is that my coffee beans came in. Oh, thank the toad these made it. Uh is your deity a giant toad because if so I WANT IN.
-Second email is an order! Wait this is a potion/coffee shop that gets orders via email? Is that really the best order tracking method?
-Whatever,. They want a coffee with Strong Joy. I think thats called an espresso but sure.
-Oh, okay so Lune clarifies. This is a POTION SHOP. Not a caf. But still we have coffee beans so were going to make this person some coffee.
-Alright well now I can back out and check my grimoire which some other character left to the cat friend but I wasnt interested enough to take their name down.
-Oh wait Faer. I remember it because I was like hm that is a dumb name.
-The art in this game is super cute. Points for cuteness.
-Lune: Most of these pages aremissing information? Thats not a tremendously helpful kind of book, I have to admit.
-Oh this grimoire will manifest information as I practice my craft. So it is less a helpful book someone passed along and more a place to cram in all the recipes I find out myself.
-Hm I flip through the book and there are 13 pages total. Got to admit, I was hoping for more than that.
-Well anyway first page is the coffee bean. Probably can make some coffee now.
-Ok so the next area of my shop is the actual ingredients. I have 12 dusty empty cubbies and the coffee bean. This can not be up to health code standards.
-It says I should use two ingredients to make a recipe. Sure. But what if I only have one ingredient?
-Well I do some potion making. I turn the crank to grind the beans, then I turn the crank to follow arrows (that change direction) to mix it into the potion, then I tilt the Playdate to pour out the potion into a jar. Andthats it. Thats it? Well I guess its the intro easy potion, maybe.
-Potion is made and the joy is quite strong (duh), so I can call it a night and move on.
-There are two cat things that are like your helper/smart alec assistants and the animations for a specific cat vary wildly from emotion to emotion. They look like entirely different creatures, and I don't mean that in the since there are two separate cats here. I mean, for the same cat, each of the different headshots are so wildly inconsistent that I can't tell which one is for which cat without looking at the dialodue. I dunno what they were going for here, but I doubt vaguely the same thing that was just talking was it.
-Yeah the character portraits that accompany the dialogue boxes are kinda ugly. Not a fan.
-Day 2 time! Gimme more potions to make, please.
-Ok multiple things are being added in requests now. I need to remember coffee adds joy (either strong or weak I think?) because this second ingredient is going to add something else.
-I get an email from Welp telling me I got a reviewed and earned a few eggs. Can I offer you an egg in these trying times?
-Why eggs tho?
-Beau: You got eggs? From making a potion? See? Even the weird looking cat has questions!
-Not real eggs, Beau. THAT JUST RAISES MORE QUESTIONS!
-I rank up at 20 eggs. What does a rank up do? No clue. Maybe I can carry more eggs to make an even bigger omelet.
-Second request: My day has been TOO good, you know? I need to balance it out with some AWFUL coffee. What kind of psychotic request is this? I refuse to make bad coffee, you monster.
-It needs Strong Misery vibes. I hear you can help. Oh wait. Ok. So I forgot to mention there is actually a bar that has six gradients. I did Strong Joy last time which was six full bars. I bet weak joy would be four, weak misery three, and strong misery one. Ok, got it.
-Manny is the other cats name. It never talks and is ugly. I hate you Manny.
-I get a letter from Faer. I have no idea if Faer is my good friend or my girlfriend. From her picture she looks like some sort of pig monster? So Im hoping just normal friend. Or she has a great personality.
-Day 3 is a bit more complex because a second ingredient actually comes in. Now things have multiple properties.
-Ive been experiencing a lot of bird drama lately. Charlie is that you?
-One potion wants Strong Magic and Weak Joy. Ok weak joy is easy but how do I do strong magic?
-I need some Strong Spirit energy to transmuteI mean commute to my human job. That one is signed Definitely a human. I have my doubts.
-Ok so good coffee is strong joy and bad coffee is strong misery. Which way of this second ingredient gives me magic and which one gives me spirit? Do I just guess?
-Faer sends another email too. Sweetheart, I found something that will surely boost your MORALE. It should be there tomorrow. Love, Faer. Ok cool I guess. Bad news is pig creature is my girlfriend. Sorry pig lady Im sure I can learn to love you.

Good news everyone! I finally managed to drag myself away from my calculator app from 1984 to play more of the things kids call "games". I've beaten one and started another. Updates should be coming tonight.

Game #40 Complete! Crankulator

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Calculate exactly how much money you're wasting!"

Here's Some Picture, I Guess:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/04c03c94.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7b053f54.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1c82acc4.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4e6c6342.png

Final Thoughts:
Crankulator is very special in my heart, because it is the game that has finally convinced me I need to move out the apps into their own separate category. I can't keep playing these pointless little apps and throwing them to the bottom of the list. That just isn't fair to games like Bub-O Collect. Those games have to try so hard to be bad and then a calculator app just shows up and utterly dominates it merely by existing. So, for now on, games on one list, things that aren't games on a second list.

I didn't record my thoughts while playing this, because why would I? Who wants someone's calculator reaction thoughts? Here's what mine would've been: "This is a calculator. This is a calculator. Why is this a calculator? This is just a calculator." Imagine how psychotic I would sound if I gave you a play by play of using a fucking calculator. Is there a more boring thing to give a play by play of? "I am now pressing the number two. Now I am pressing the number four. Now I am pressing the numbers 58008 and holding the calculator upside down...ladies and gentlemen, I think I may have found an easter egg."

So, and I've asked this question before, but: why? Why? Someone, somewhere got their hands on the Playdate and saw what it was capable of and they thought to themselves: "I should make a calculator!" You can do anything you want and you make a calculator? I was utterly perplexed by PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks, but at least that guy had a thought. That guy woke up one morning and was like "I had clocks and keeping track of time and I want everyone else to hate those things, too. I should make the worst alarm clocks ever so no one knows how to tell time again." In contrast, the person who made Crankulator was like "hey what if calculators existed? that would be cool!" and then Blaise Pascal showed up from 1650 to hand them a violation of intellectual property. You can't just release a calculator on a gaming storefront. That's like that one awful house that would hand out toothbrushes and Bible verses on Halloween. These things are supposed to be fun. Or at the very least, these things are supposed to be not a calculator.

ALSO. Also. This is a worse version of a calculator. This is a calculator that is absolutely awful to use. They got the crank involved, for some reason, and you have to crank your way to the number you want to use. This is fine if you're six and adding 12 and 7 because your brain can't do math yet. But say you want to calculate 80 million times 45678. Hope your wrist is strong because you're about to do more cranking that [THIS SECTION REMOVED FOR HORNYPOSTING]. The Crankulator is the world's least accessible, least usable calculator. The numbers are read by a mostly unintelligible robot and you use a crank to get to them, and that's the whole gimmick.

There is exactly one and only one scenario where this game is worth purchasing, and that is as part of a white elephant gift exchange. "What is this thing?" "A calculator!" "A calculator...that seems normal enough." "No, this calculator talks like a robot that is having a stroke and you can only get to numbers by cranking to them." "Haha, that is the worst calculator of all time! Congrats on this hilariously bad joke gift." And then everyone claps because you found the single dumbest thing of all time. That's the only time you should buy this. Otherwise you know that thing you have in your pocket that you has a calculator built into it? Use that instead.

As a very quick conclusion - there is actually technically a game here. You have to find it. The developer hid it because they were afraid someone might have fun with it and that would defeat the point of a calculator app in the first place. If you hold down b for several seconds, you get taken to a screen that is something a bad teacher in 1993 would use to teach dumb children math. You are given a prompt (like "which of these doesn't equal 19" or "which are prime numbers" or "on a scale of 1-10, how sad is this game making you?") and you have to pick the five correct answers while avoiding the wrong ones. Some sort of monster creature shows up and jumps around some like he is a villain from Q*Bert that got laid off and took a job to make ends meet, and if you bump into him you lose a life. You also lose a life if you pick a wrong answer, and after losing three lives you're kicked back out to the screen and have to do more crank related math problems as punishment.

I'm not sure you can lose at this unless you're trying and eventually I just had to feed myself to the monster because I couldn't take another group of remedial math problems. Your lives refill after each question, which feels almost cruel because it traps you in this longer that way. I don't want to talk about that though because I can't talk about prime numbers any longer for the day according to my therapist. What I spent most of my time thinking about while playing this was actually "is this the least played game I've ever played?" The Playdate has a small install base. Fewer of those people are actually playing games on it. And then fewer still are purchasing from the catalogue. And then even fewer are buy a game that advertises itself as a calculator. And then, of those people, you essentially have to be someone weird enough to go in the discord and read up on how to do this, because while the store page hints at an easter egg, that's all you get. Have more than a dozen people played "crankulator: hidden math question mini-game"?

If you have, please reach out to me. I want to make us all t-shirts.

Should You Play It? No, on account of it being a calculator. If I ever recommend a calculator to you for one of your gaming consoles, I have already been replaced by a smarmy less handsome AI facsimile.

Final Score: 1. On account of it being a calculator that is difficult to use. I might even need a new ranking system because 1 is too generous. This one scored a calculator/10.

Games Completed: 40/172

Game Rankings:
37) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
36) Hidey Spot
35) Bub-O Collect
34) The Lushes Land
33) Nightingale
32) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
31) Recommendation Dog!!
30) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
29) Whitewater Wipeout
28) The Botanist
27) Snak
26) DYG
25) Inventory Hero
24) Lost Your Marbles
23) Grand Tour Legends
22) Life's Too Short
21) Life's 2 Short: Unhooked
20) Demon Quest '85
19) The Fall of Elena Temple
18) Flipper Lifter
17) Questy Chess
16) Slitherlink PD
15) The Keyper
14) SKEW
13) Star Sled
12) Echoic Memory
11) Executive Golf DX
10) Omaze
9) Sasquatchers
8) Word Trip
7) Hyper Meteor
6) Castle Tintagel
5) Casual Birder
4) Zipper
3) Pick Pack Pup
2) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure
1) Saturday Edition

App Rankings:
4) Crankulator
3) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
2) Boogie Loops
1) This space left intentionally blank

Game #39 Complete! Inventory Hero

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "The most compelling inventory management simulator on the Playdate!"

Final Thoughts: Inventory Hero is a great example of an interesting idea I just have no interest in playing. At first I was like "wait I'm just throwing away garbage in my inventory?" and I was ready to call things right away. Then I played it for a little while and I was like "oh this is actually kind of interesting." Then I played it a bit longer and decided I never need to play it again. It is one of those things that is more interesting than good. I kind of like how they hyper focused the gameplay on this one relatively minor aspect of most RPGs, but I don't kind of like playing it, which is a problem.

Inventory management is usually the kind of thing I do to get to the fun stuff in RPGs. Just a task that is sort of in my way of what I want to do, so I do it. Here it is the whole thing, which is at least an idea. Some of the games I've played on the Playdate only have one idea and that's "make a game that is functional, maybe." This has a core concept and unique hook, which I appreciate. It is just not really a fun concept. So while I appreciate the thought that went into this...no. No. Take it back. I don't want it.

There's a lot of weird things here with the design that just don't quite work. I can see why the developers here thought they would, but almost all of them make things worse. Like, the RNG. Ok, you need RNG in a game like this. The game is so dreadfully repetitive to begin with and you literally are just watching two characters bump up against each other for half an hour and sometimes the sprites change. That RNG of giving you new items or garbage is sort of the "hook" of the entire game. The limited inventory is the "hook". Hey you don't know what you're getting and you don't have a lot of space to work with - work with what you got and see what you can do. That's the game, essentially, and it works sort of in short doses.

But then you get to the end game. Then you get to the part where the game actually wants to challenge you, and the RNG can just walk up to you, hit the "your game is over" button, and then your game is over. Weapons degrade so fast and whenever you get to a certain point, you just cannot make contact with the enemies any more. So your weapons get weak, and then you cannot even hit the enemies to get new ones. This isn't even about keeping enough extra weapons on hand at the end, because degradation can occur so fast (and not really even explain how or why), that you're just out of luck. You just can''t win. You get to watch your character miss for like two minutes as your health is whittled down and you waste your healing items in futility. Games just tend to be less fun when the RNG can make it impossible to proceed. RNG is there to add variety to the gameplay. It shouldn't be there to loudly announce its bored and shoo you out the door because it has a hot date.

And with that RNG...honestly, what is the point in even playing again? There are no global leaderboards (a huge oversight from a game Panic themselves made - how do you omit a leaderboard when the whole conceit is getting to the highest level possible?) so why bother trying again? The early game is utterly brainless because enemies are relatively easy and your weapons aren't crumbling to dust every time a character looks at them. I got to the end game repeating level my first try, and then never once played through a game without getting back to it. The first 20 minutes are utterly brainless, and then after that you get to the stuff that matters and sometimes things are fine and then other times the game just loudly yells "LEAVE ME ALONE" and your run is over. That combination of slow, boring, repetitive gameplay at first and the "fuck you leave me alone" RNG at the end make it so hard to keep doing runs. Once I realized what was happening, the last couple of runs I did felt like an absolute chore.

I'm also more annoyed than I have any right to be that the game is endless and I was not told. I complained about Recommendation Dog!! but your first time through that game there is an ending. You reach an end and then the game is like "ok now just keep going". How hard would it have been to put that in? I am tired of going to the Discord to find out something about a game because the developers didn't one to put a one sentence blurb somewhere. I played for a handful of runs and wasn't sure if I was trying to get to some point or if I was in just an endless loop game and didn't know.

I just did not have a good time with this. Any time I'm about to start a game up and it feels like a chore, something when wrong somewhere.

Should You Play It? It is free. It isn't fun, but it's free. Make of that what you will.

Final Score: 3. Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. So bad.

Games Completed: 39/151

Game Rankings:
39) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
38) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
37) Boogie Loops
36) Hidey Spot
35) Bub-O Collect
34) The Lushes Land
33) Nightingale
32) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
31) Recommendation Dog!!
30) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
29) Whitewater Wipeout
28) The Botanist
27) Snak
26) DYG
25) Inventory Hero
24) Lost Your Marbles
23) Grand Tour Legends
22) Life's Too Short
21) Life's 2 Short: Unhooked
20) Demon Quest '85
19) The Fall of Elena Temple
18) Flipper Lifter
17) Questy Chess
16) Slitherlink PD
15) The Keyper
14) SKEW
13) Star Sled
12) Echoic Memory
11) Executive Golf DX
10) Omaze
9) Sasquatchers
8) Word Trip
7) Hyper Meteor
6) Castle Tintagel
5) Casual Birder
4) Zipper
3) Pick Pack Pup
2) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure
1) Saturday Edition

That's kind of the point, I think. You're supposed to be making these rapid fire decisions because your inventory space is limited. That part I don't mind. It is how endlessly repetitive things are and how RNG can really just straight up kill you at the end. So you have 20-30 minutes of boring repetition followed by maybe the game letting you play a bit longer or not depending on its mood.

Currently Playing: Inventory Hero

What Is It? One of the games Panic developed themselves as part of the Season 1 releases for the Playdate. You intensely manage the inventory of an RPG hero. That's everyone's favorite part of an RPG, right?

Gameplay Overview: The game actually sort of plays itself with your RPG hero facing off against a continually stream of enemies. Each time they hit an enemy, they'll drop something. It can either be a piece of equipment, a healing item, or straight up garbage. You need to equip the good pieces of stuff and toss what you don't need. You only have six inventory slots and once those fill up you'll start discarding things randomly once new stuff pops in. The hits come faster and faster so you have to stay on top of things or else risk getting beat up by angry crabs, giant humans, and a crow boss.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/inventory-hero/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/afdf396d.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/ced74dd1.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/945d2ef3.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c4308450.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a9b9b411.png

Thoughts:
-Wellon to Inventory Hero! Another Season 1 release, so Im hoping for something better than average at least.
-Menu screen is cute. Begin thy quest yes please!
-Also theres a high score so Im guessing this is another score chaser kind of game.
-You are about to explore faraway lands, battle beastly foes, and grow as a Hero. But dont worry most of this happens by itself. You have but one challenge: to balance your inventory. Ah so an adventure game for people that spent hour optimizing space in the Diablo 2 menu screen, eh?
-Looks like my options will be to drop something, equip something, or save for later. Easy enough. I look forward to accidentally killing my person over and over because I dont know what items are.
-So you have a little screen within the screen showing your Hero running and battling foes, a menu to the left side showing health, level xp, and what you have equipped, and then all your items at the bottom. Easy enough so far.
-A little ghost shows up saying they used to be like me once. Before the death thing?
-Ghost: My advice? Watch out for rabbits. Wow if my downfall was caused by rabbits I would spend my entire afterlife lying about it.
-Ok so this is a sort ofauto fighter thing? Each enemy drops something, which seems to be equipment (breakable after a while), a healing item, or trash. You want to toss the trash because when your inventory is full it gets rid of the oldest item and it could be something good.
-Im uh not having fun. And Im five minutes in. UH OH.
-Well on to adventure valley. Will this be the same as the intro area? Undoubtedly.
-It basically is. There are a couple of twists now. There are multiple things that can take over your inventory. Get a bunny? It starts multiplying and overflowing into adjacent slots and soon your whole inventory will be bunnies.
-OH GOD THAT GHOST WAS RIGHT WATCH OUT FOR BUNNIES.
-I think mushroom are the same, but they dont multiply as fast and you can actually heal with them so they arent totally useless.
-I spent roughly five minutes on the boss before figuring out what to do. I didnt even notice my guy wasnt draining its health at first because I was too busy managing my inventory haha.
-So the boss tosses out junk items that fill your inventory, useful items you want to keep, and bombs. I thought bombs were going to be something that blew me up, on account of them being bombs, so I kept quickly tossing them. It wasnt until I noticed I hadnt done any damage that I tried using one and it does cause damage to the boss. Oops.
-Well boss one down! On to the next level: the jungle.
-WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE. Do you have fun and games?
-The jungle is incredibly annoying because like two thirds of my attacks miss so every fight takes forever. COME ON MAN HIT SOMETHING.
-Im fighting a cube and it keeps avoiding. IT IS JUST A BOX SMUSH IT OR SOMETHING
-Get through the jungle and the area after it, which is world of big things or something like that and all the enemies are slightly larger than normal.
-I think one of my problems with this game is that all the enemies feel basically the same. Im barely paying attention to the actual action and just sort of looking at my items to toss or use what I need.
-My basic strategy since I figured things out is to sort of get five good items, keep tossing or immediately using the next one, or move over to the next worse thing and toss it. Its worked swimmingly so far without much issue.
-Second boss is sort of the first again, except now you need two pieces of a scroll to make a bomb, and then use the bomb to damage. So basically the same as the last one except you want two spots open instead of just one.
-Castle level is next whichmight be the end? I feel like castle is the logical end so well see.
-Oh no this is probably the end. After castle is glitch. Cant get more intense than glitch level, right?
-Boss of glitch is harder. Now you need to link three scrolls to make a bomb, which means leaving a lot of space in your inventory so you cant just keep a ton of healing items. Then hell throw up these super spawning rabbits that take over your entire inventory and you basically have to toss everything all at once.
-That being said I still beat him without much trouble and I dont think my health ever dropped below like two thirds.
-Theres more glitch? Another glitch? What the hell?
-Oh its a never ending glitch. I get like three glitch stages in a row before eventually dying, and at that point I go to look it up because Im confused as to what the hell is going on.
-The discord server confirms it it repeats endlessly. You just keep playing, maxing out your level as high as you can.
-Im not positive how many times Im going to want to play this. I dont really care about maxing out my level here or beating my old high score. Ill give it a couple more plays just to make sure I have a good sense of everything and then Ill call it a game and move on.
-I do that and I have no real new thoughts because nothing changes. This one doesn't work for me as well as the lot of the other score chasing games for a couple of reasons, one of them being RNG can just end your run.
-Like not even anything you can do, just RNG giving you the finger and saying you're done playing.
-Equipment degrades, and once you reach the glitch the degradation happens super fast. Like I had a 38 attack go to 17 in a single hit. I have no idea how degradation occurs because it doesn't every time. But you can have a sword and a backup sword go to zero and the game just not drop weapons in that time frame, so you are just literally unable to hit. The attack drops below a certain point and you can no longer hit enemies. I've had runs where all my weapons degrade then I miss for like two solid minutes while my health gets slowly drained. "Fun"
-I get RNG is part of the fun, but it is hard to have a run end ONLY because of RNG. Why would I want to go through the first boring 20 minutes again just to get back to the end segment and have to rely on the game playing nice to top my old high score?
-Also no online leaderboards. All my homies hate games with no online leaderboards.
-MEH.

Time Played: Between all my runs I'm at roughly 3-4 hours, I think.
High Score: 89 levels.
Beaten? As much as you can, yeah.
Grade: Too much happiness for a while and I'm back in the realm of "3" I think.
Favorite Part So Far: Probably the concept itself. I was like "oh that's kind of interesting" and then I played it and was like "oh that's not very fun though."

Game #38 Complete! Word Trip

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Worth the trip."

Final Thoughts: Curse you Word Trip! I was looking for a bad catalogue game since I had just played a great season game and didn't want to use up all my good games in a row. Word Trip had to go and mess things up by being halfway decent. The audacity. THE AUDACITY. This game is pretty good and really simple. I can't have funny thoughts about that!

The caveat I'll preface this with is that this isn't anything great or exciting. This isn't Saturday Edition or Crankin' or even Casual Birder. No one is running up to tell you how excited they were about Playdate. If they do, that's just the developer and please report them because they've been banned from several Targets already for that level of aggressive marketing. Word Trip isn't making any end of year "best of" lists because this just isn't the kind of game that was made with that sort of thing in mind. No one's favorite game is going to be Word Trip. If someone tells you that, keep a close eye on them because they might be a rogue AI built to solve word puzzles and they've escaped their lab.

What it is though is fine. It's fine! It is a perfectly enjoyable word puzzle game you can play for ten minutes when you're bored. It would up being one of the better score chasing games I played. I thought I was done and I moved on to the next mystery game, but while I was playing that one I was like "hm Word Trip was better maybe I'll go give that another run instead" and I did a couple of times. I like word puzzle games like this and there is enough here (plus online leaderboards!) that gave this decent replayability.

The biggest issue for me is the word bank feels smaller than I thought when it could be "all four letter words" and I was seeing target word repeats way more often than I should. Also the online leaderboards can be easily cheated using my fool proof method. I had this amazing run on Hard and got 56 which was good for second place in the whole world! Woo hoo! Then I checked the leaderboard scores and first place was 155. Boo. That's the word puzzle AI I've been warning everyone about! Or it is another person who found out how to cheat and just went crazy. You shouldn't be able to pause in a game like this. I get accessibility but the whole point of this is leaderboard chasing and it is way too easy to cheese with a pause button. You don't have to cheat obviously, but I always get discouraged from leaderboard chasing when the top scores just aren't possible to get legit.

Regardless, it was a solid title. I had fun even with the simplicity and the flaws I mentioned above. If you like word puzzles you'll probably like this.

Should You Play It? Sure. if you like word puzzles at least. There's definitely a niche for this sort of game and if you aren't in it, you won't like it.

Final Score: 6. Totally fine. Mostly pretty good even if it could've been better. Putting it just below Hyper Meteor which still stands as the best point chasing option on the Playdate imo.

Games Completed: 378/151

Game Rankings:
38) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
37) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
36) Boogie Loops
35) Hidey Spot
34) Bub-O Collect
33) The Lushes Land
32) Nightingale
31) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
30) Recommendation Dog!!
29) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
28) Whitewater Wipeout
27) The Botanist
26) Snak
25) DYG
24) Lost Your Marbles
23) Grand Tour Legends
22) Life's Too Short
21) Life's 2 Short: Unhooked
20) Demon Quest '85
19) The Fall of Elena Temple
18) Flipper Lifter
17) Questy Chess
16) Slitherlink PD
15) The Keyper
14) SKEW
13) Star Sled
12) Echoic Memory
11) Executive Golf DX
10) Omaze
9) Sasquatchers
8) Word Trip
7) Hyper Meteor
6) Castle Tintagel
5) Casual Birder
4) Zipper
3) Pick Pack Pup
2) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure
1) Saturday Edition

sergiocornaga posted...

So exciting to see a new game top the list! I look forward to playing it. It looks like I'll be waiting another two weeks for Saturday Edition... unless I decide to skip forward in the season.

It's interesting to hear that developers are finding this thread. It's unfortunate that there's so little writing about Playdate games out there, but I've personally always appreciated your candid, snarky tone. There's a real sense that these are your honest and relatively unfiltered reactions, which I find so valuable. And it's certainly not dissuading me from buying any games! I bought HANA Spacetime Fantasy, A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents, DYG, and The Keyper, all after reading about them in this thread. Hell, I bought a Playdate partly thanks to reading this thread.

I haven't spent enough time in Playdate communities to speak with any authority, but I get the sense that most places shy away from potentially upsetting criticism in favour of more encouraging positive feedback. I think this can be great! If developer-focused Playdate spaces are welcoming of inexperienced newcomers, strange experiments, and rough edges, it will no doubt improve the breadth and magnitude of the Playdate library. I personally prefer this to be balanced with the sort of criticism found in this thread, and as a game developer I often seek out (constructive) negative feedback in hope of improving my craft, but I understand not everyone feels OK with this.

That said, I love reading glowing reviews of weird stuff too, and I've found that Playdate: The Unofficial Website (run by TheGameLlama) is an excellent source for this. Check out this wildly different review of HANA Spacetime Fantasy! https://www.playdateunofficial.com/the-games/hana-spacetime-fantasy

They also put out a really intriguing 2023 GOTY list (also consisting entirely of games you presumably haven't played, and neither have I): https://www.playdateunofficial.com/articles/2023-playdate-goty

One of them, Initial Daydream, is currently only avaialable on itch.io. I hesitate to bring this up, but... I suspect your count of total games available on Playdate has been excluding everything there? Because it looks like there are at least 817 available there: https://itch.io/games/tag-playdate
Apologies for any can of worms this might open.

Lastly, I finished Mars After Midnight last night. It suits being divided into short sessions very well, so I played it nightly with my mum over the past three weeks. It's definitely one to get, and I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Savor the weekly season releases! It's the most fun part of the console imo. Glad I helped sway you into getting the console and didn't wind up scaring you away. It has probably become my most played console for the past 4-5 months or so. It is just sort of a fun idea, even if a lot of the games here aren't great.

Yeah, I'm definitely not complaining about the discord being somewhat coddling. There are developers crawling all over the place there, and a lot of the more effusive praise is from one developer to another if you check into who is commenting. Which is fine! It just makes it very hard for me to figure out what is good since everything is praised there.

I somehow have not seen that website at all so thanks for linking it. I've also been looking for other "reviews" and I could not find anything. I'm shocked to see that level or praise for HANA, but I do also wonder if I was so annoyed I couldn't appreciate the story. I don't think that's it - I remember finding the plot really bland and uninteresting at the time. But I also remember hating the gameplay and visuals and style so much that maybe it just bled over and lead me into a hate cloud I couldn't see through. I dunno. Glad someone out there liked it.

It makes so much sense it was released in two chunks on itch. I didn't know that and the style change is so jarring it feels like someone stappled some other game onto the back end of it which I guess is kinda sorta what happened.

The most important thing I can say about this game was that I never had any idea where it was going.

Well I 100% agree with that at least.

I do know this is the kind of game that just doesnt get made when you have a lot of people above you telling you what game to make. Its rough, and strange, and doesnt spell out everything for you (but it does explain enough to help you understand what you're doing and where youre going and why). Its one of those games that only an open ecosystem like the Playdate would allow. Highly recommended.

I get what they're saying here and it is also something I find valuable about indie gaming in general. BUT I also think you have to realize that not every bit of company oversight is creativity quashing, focus group restricting nonsense. Sometimes someone above you tells you what to do because they can't appreciate your vision, and sometimes someone above you tells you what to do because covering your entire body in macaroni and cheese and running naked through a playground just isn't a good idea. That lack of oversight can lead to great things, but it can also lead to things that would've been changed or refined for good reason.

That is an interesting GOTY list, too! I mentioned before but I had only been following the community awards, where the nominees were Root Bear, Gun Trials, Reelistic Fishing and also Resonant Tale. Bloom was a 2022 nominee though so that was also on my radar! I'm assuming that's the game that got the big update that they said should could for 2023. Some of these games I have intentionally been saving for a rainy day (Gun Trials in particular) but others like Bloom I just haven't heard all that much about. And Resonant Tale I almost played last year! I was looking for something that fit into the action adventure category here on GameFAQs and there weren't a ton of Playdate games. My two finalists were Resonant Tale and...HANA. Oh, what a terrible decision I made in retrospect. Curse me for picking what I thought was the more interesting game title.

And, yes! I am not counting things you can sideload for a couple of reasons. First, there is at least "some" curation process into what gets put on the catalogue from itch.io. So I have to assume the average quality of that endless sea is somehow worse which isn't something I want to deal with. And, second, every hyped game from itch.io has been brought over the catalogue at some point. I'm assuming the good stuff will make its way over before shop is shut down.

Thanks for the links here though!

Johnbobb posted...

I was wondering if that would be the new #1!

It was super close! I like Crankin' a lot, but this one gets the edge ever so slightly. I'm a sucker for a good adventure game.

Johnbobb posted...

Also Lucas Pope making a Playdate game is the most compelling argument in favor of it I've heard yet

TomNook7 posted...

Oh shit Lucas Pope game is out? damn son playdate is back

Knew I could count on this board for the Lucas Pope excitement. This was the first "day 1 download" title for me on the Playdate. I haven't played it yet but it is definitely on my to do list.

TotallyNotMI posted...

I honestly love that email! How very sweet.

Right?!? Super sweet when I was honestly relatively harsh on their game. Glad someone was able to get some feedback they were looking for, honestly.

Oh wow wait another? It took me so long to gather up my thoughts on Saturday Edition I've already beaten another game! Or three...

Currently Playing: Word Trip

What Is It? Basically Word Ladder but with a hot new twist. Have you ever played Word Ladder on Sporcle? They have them daily so go check it out if you want and you'll get like 75% of the experience here.

Gameplay Overview: You are given a word and you need to make it into a new word using one or more steps. The only rule is you have to take three letters from your first word and one of the goal word to make a new word. So if your starting word is FART and your goal word is BUTT, you could use the ART from your word and the B from the goal to bake BRAT. Then take the BRT from BRAT and the U from BUTT to make BRUT, and then finally you can make BUTT. You get points each time you get to your goal word, at which point you get a new goal word and you keep going as long as you can. You are on a timer and each new word you make (even if it isn't the final goal word) gives you more time. Keep going and climb the leaderboards.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/word-trip/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/88e30948.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0ece8deb.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bb8e4d5c.png

Thoughts:
-That last one was so good I feel like I should sprinkle in something less good. Dont want to get all the good ones done in a row! So time to see what the catalogue has to offer me this time.
-Ive bought like thirty games when they were on sale so there are a ton of unopened presents on my menu screen. I pick one at random and getWord Trip! Its a word puzzle game. Couldve been worse because I bought some weird stuff.
-Welcome to Word Trip! The goal of the game is to get from the top word to the bottom one by making new four letter words. You can only change one letter at a time. Its a classic puzzle type but I cant remember what its name is.
-Oh ok this is a little different. Theres a little fuel gauge on the side, and you need to get to the bottom word before time runs out. You can refuel at a pit stop if youre running low and earn extra pit stops every eight word puzzles you finish.
-Oh no I think I like this one too.
-I was honestly hoping for a bad game to follow up Saturday Edition. I don't want to accidentally play all the good games and get stuck with random garbage and calculator apps at the end.
-This is pretty solid though. Like, ok, so it is a simple word puzzle game. There's a ceiling here. But it is pretty fun in short doses and I keep coming back for another run or two after thinking "eh I should call it a night".
-I might be too dumb to be great at this game. A lot of times I'll get stuck and time runs out and the game is like "why didn't you use this word?" and I'm like "well I didn't know that was a word or I would've!" Like, what the hell is FLAM? No one told me about FLAM? Like flimflam?
-I google it and flam is "one of the basic patterns of drumming, consisting of a stroke preceded by a grace note". Ohhhh of fucking course. How did I not think of flam? I can't wait to use flam in my day to day life now. I'll be listening to a song with my wife and I'll go "wow did you hear that flam?" and she'll go "what is flam" and I'll go "one of the basic patterns of drumming, consisting of a stroke receded by a grace note" and she'll go "I want a divorce."
-Oooh AMOK that's a cool word.
-Some of these linking words are absolutely wild and I can't tell if they are intentionally programmed to be partnered up like this or just random.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7d9fdf14.png
-That would've been so much more fun if I was doing METH FIRE instead of FIRE METH.
-Welp right after that I found a new favorite.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6350d3c7.png
-AIDS BABY? HOLY SHIT WORD TRIP YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT
-I did a double take when AIDS BABY appeared on my word puzzle game. Didn't think Word Trip would just drop an AIDS BABY in my lap and walk away.
-Ok serious complaint here though: it is way too easy to cheat the leaderboards.
-I play this for a while and get really good and get really lucky with some easy chains on hard, and I finish with a score of 56 on hard. 56 is good for second place overall, alltime. First place is...hm...let me check this quickly 155 by uncletrunks
-Uncletrunks is either a super computer built to chase high scores on weird indie game system no one plays, or a no good cheater.
-After being confused as to how the hell first place was 100 points ahead of me in second place, I was like "can you cheat in this game?" and pretty easily found a way to do so! You can pause your game at any time, solve the puzzle, then unpause and put the answer in quickly. There is nothing stopping you from doing this as there is no punishment associated with pausing. The landing page for Word Trip links you to a puzzle solver for any two words you put in. Why? WHY ARE YOU TEMPTING PEOPLE TO CHEAT, WORD TRIP?
-I mean, you can just play without cheating if you aren't a jerk, of course, but half the fun here is chasing the top scores on the leaderboard and that is a lot less fun when it is so easy to cheat and the top scores are almost certainly doing so.
-Also the word bank here is smaller than I thought. I keep getting the same target words. So part of this is fast reaction word puzzle solving and part of it is "oh yeah PARA is the word I couldn't think of for this one last time, guess I'll put it in."
-That being said though, this is pretty solid. I enjoyed this and played it longer than I was planning to. I'd probably isn't quite Hyper Meteor level of score chasing fun, but like just a bit below that.

Time Played: I'd say likely four hours or so. A whole bunch of runs, but all the runs are pretty quick. No clue what the overall playtime was but I'd say four hours is a safe guess.
High Score: Easy: 120, Medium: 75, Hard: 56
Beaten? Sure. A whole bunch of times.
Grade: I would say this is pretty safely a 6. Kind of a "eh, it was pretty good!" kind of game.
Favorite Part So Far: AIDS BABY

I've got some HOT PLAYDATE NEWS to celebrate a new king of the hill in Saturday Edition.

First off is there is a Playdate game you might actually be excited for now. Or at least I was excited for it I should say. Pretty big indie dev launched their game last week:

https://play.date/games/mars-after-midnight/

Mars After Midnight, brought to you by Lucas Pope. For those not intensely in the indie game scene, Lucas Pope's previous games are Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. I happen to love both of those games and Mars After Midnight was the most anticipated game for Playdate since the launch titles by a very large margin. It's gotten universal acclaim so far on the discord, but honestly every single game does. It is an echo chamber there because a lot of the developers post there too and no one wants to be mean, which means it is hard to tell what is real hype and what is just overinflated. I'm really excited for this one though. I know literally nothing about it and I refuse to look into it. I want to go in blind. But I'd expect to see this one popping up here shortly.

Next is the Community Awards were streamed the other day! They did this back in 2023 as well for the 2022 releases. I just checked because I couldn't remember and Saturday Edition was actually a finalist for game of the year! It lost out to Ratcheteer which I also should be playing soon.

https://play.date/games/community-awards-2023-goty/

You can find the actual video on Youtube. The winner of the Game of the Year was Reel-istic Fishing with the runner ups being Root Bear, Gun Trials, and Resonant Tale. I've played...none of those so maybe some good stuff in my future! I actually hadn't played any of the 2022 Game of the Year nominees either besides Saturday Edition. Maybe my list is bottom heavy because I've been playing all the wrong games.

And, finally, as I referenced above, there are so few (and by few I mean zero) reviews of most of these Playdate games that I think some of the developers have started looking for feedback anywhere and found their way here. One I know did for sure because they put their name to it in an email! I'm including the email below because it was very nice:

I'm [redacted], from Cool Lemon Club. We just read your review for our game and we just needed to get in contact. Not only is one of the very few reviews we got -- the Playdate is a very niche console and getting attention is hard -- it is amazingly detailed and well written! It shows how deep you thought of our game and the time it took for you to complete and analyze it. We are reaching to you to express our sincere thanks for it.

We make games for this kind of moments, were an experience we crafted meant something to someone, and that someone leaved our product with something along them. Our intention with the Keyper was to create exactly what you described, word by word.

Thanks again for playing and for taking the time to write your impressions so thoroughly.

So if you have the Playdate, go check out The Keyper! I thought it was pretty ok and the developers seem like cool people. It is very unique and very weird, which I'm always a fan of at the very least.

This has, however, made things a bit more awkward going forward. I've gotten several anonymous messages that I'm assuming are people connected to certain games and now this email. I like posting thoughts here because I always assumed no one is going to read my stupid ramblings other than the handful of people that call this board home so I could basically say whatever I want. Knowing this feedback can (and has) made its way back to people is something I don't want to impact thoughts/rankings so hopefully it doesn't but who knows.

Game #37 Complete! Saturday Edition

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Playdate's first must play game. Well, pretty close, at least."

Final Thoughts: I haven't brought this up until now, but I'm pretty sure I've been getting contacted by some of the people that work on these games. One I know for sure (they emailed me) but a couple others have messaged me anonymously here to tell me I am too harsh and not funny. The second thing is absolutely true but I am not so sure about the first. I can't imagine anyone getting so worked up about my opinions on "Playdate game #26 that no one played" that they feel the need to yell at me about it unless they had a hand in making the game. Or maybe their mom, I guess. Did I get yelled at by someone's mom recently? I'm not sure but it is a distinct possibility. Anyway I bring this up just on the off chance the people behind Saturday Edition read this for some reason: you should make more games.

Also: I should've been MORE mean to all those other bad adventure games! You're telling me I could've been playing this the entire time? I've played so many bad adventure games lately that some of those messages had me thinking "...am I too hard on these games?" Maybe you just can't make a good game on the Playdate, I don't know. It would be like criticizing games made on a TI-83 calculator in 2003. Hey man, you can only do so much with this thing. Stop being so grumpy. BUT NOPE.

I

AM

VINDICATED

All those other garbage games can go kick rocks. My standards aren't too high - your 26 minute game about the squiggle getting lost in what looks like a melting Jackson Pollock painting just wasn't very good.

Saturday Edition is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for in an adventure game. We have this weird, interesting story that feels wholly unique combined with some decent puzzles and its long enough that I'm not going to finish the whole thing in between commercial breaks of whatever is on tv. Could it have been better? Sure. I mentioned before, but this reminds me of a less good version of Night In The Woods. Again, not an insult. But it just isn't *quite* at that highest level of adventure game. It doesn't mostly everything right, but doesn't do everything so right that it is going to be in my game of the year consideration. The puzzles could've been a bit better and most of the characters here are kind of forgettable...there are things I could point to if I felt like being a nitpicker.

But I'm not here to pick nits. Not today. I'll save that for when I'm reviewing HANA 2: The Death of Smiling. This is just a really, really good adventure game. It is the kind of game that made me fall in love with the genre so many years ago now. YMMV here, of course, and I could be overrating slightly just because I like the style of the game. The note system is really clever though and it makes John feel more like an adventure game detective than most adventure games I've played staring actual detectives. I like how most of the game is conversation focused and I like how the notes John takes can be used to either advance conversation trees or trigger some new knowledge with an item to use it in a new way. The story is a lot of fun, and I think the little bit of vagueness here works in the games favor. I like just about everything about Saturday Edition.

It was really hard for me to decide between this an Crankin' for that coveted top spot on my list. Crankin' is the sort of game that justifies the system. It makes fully use out of the crank and it does so in such a way that you can't really see it on another system. Saturday Edition doesn't use the crank, at all. It could've appeared on any console since the NES, really. But what Saturday Edition does is speak to the spirit of the Playdate. It is a great example of the kind of game Panic is trying to attract to the Playdate. A genuinely good, wildly unique, thoroughly charming indie adventure that feels like it never wouldve made it out of a pitch session at a big game studio. It is fun and weird and strange and a little rough around the edges. Basically, it is exactly what you should expect out of a Playdate game. Saturday Edition showcases exactly what can be done on this adorable little console, and it is a shame more games didnt follow its example.

Should You Play It? Absolutely. One of the best games on the Playdate AND it is completely free with the console. You'd be crazy not to.

Final Score: 8. Very, very good. Thoroughly recommended to everyone unless alien abductions trigger your PTSD.

Games Completed: 37/151

Game Rankings:
37) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
36) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
35) Boogie Loops
34) Hidey Spot
33) Bub-O Collect
32) The Lushes Land
31) Nightingale
30) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
29) Recommendation Dog!!
28) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
27) Whitewater Wipeout
26) The Botanist
25) Snak
24) DYG
23) Lost Your Marbles
22) Grand Tour Legends
21) Life's Too Short
20) Life's 2 Short: Unhooked
19) Demon Quest '85
18) The Fall of Elena Temple
17) Flipper Lifter
16) Questy Chess
15) Slitherlink PD
14) The Keyper
13) SKEW
12) Star Sled
11) Echoic Memory
10) Executive Golf DX
9) Omaze
8) Sasquatchers
7) Hyper Meteor
6) Castle Tintagel
5) Casual Birder
4) Zipper
3) Pick Pack Pup
2) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure
1) Saturday Edition

-Well someone wrote a code in the book and it happens to be the code to the locked door. Well, that was dumb of you, cult, but thanks.
-Down in the wine cellar is an elevator. Sure, lets take the creepy elevator to the sub-sub basement. Why not?
-Um. OK. UM. HELP.
-I have entered the inner sanctum of the cult, it looks like. There is a weird giant statue. And my hat! Well, at least I know where that well empties out to, I guess. Also, hooray, my hat!
-UM. HELP.
-I make it to the base of the statue. There are a bunch of what I assume to be people covered in white sheets propped up against its base. John thinks one is breathing and tries to talk. No response. It is wet and smells bad. Thats never a good combo.
-Oh. Ok. Ew. So John says its isnt a sheet they have on them. It is some sort of cocoon like material. WHAT IS GOING ON.
-I use the glass shard I picked up to cut a hole where the head should be. Theyre breathing, but not conscious.
-Again: WHAT. IS. GOING. ON.
-I cut open three of these people. The second one tries to talk but is incoherent. The third one is Anna. Uh oh. UH OH.
-Johns plan now is to go back up and try to get help. Good plan. Shouldve called the cops when you had a chance.
-I call the chief and tell him that I found them. Chief: Thats great news. Thats the best news Ive heard in years. Yeah you might want to let me finish my sentence here, chief.
-I give him my general location. Big mansion, north of the city, surrounded by Cypress trees. Cool that should only take a couple of days to narrow down.
-I dont tell him about the human cocoons downstairs for some reason. Way to bury the lede, man.
-I mention how my head and chest are killing me. Might be the gunshot or almost gunshot, whatever it was.
-John suddenly gets an idea and says to send out the choppers and look for the signal. You, uh, want to share with me what that is. Because I dont know what you want me to do man.
-No? Ok, cool. Time to wander again!
-I find the maid and tell her to get everyone out of the house because Chrysalis is cancelled. She just wanders off, probably to get the murder demons to eat my eyeballs for being a non-believer.
-Oh what a neat mechanic. So something I havent really mentioned is that each time you get a clue, John writes down a note. And when you use it one the right thing (either a person to trigger a conversation or item to get John to do something) he crumples it up. But you keep the crumpled up note in your inventory and I had no idea why because it was taking up space. BUT now Im at the end of the game, I find an empty wicker basket and when I try to set it on fire John goes I need some kindling, first. And you fill the basket with all your used notes. What a cool payoff.
-Well now the house is on fire. Um. You sure those human cocoons are safe down in the basement, John? Might want to go check on them first or nope ok were running out of the house.
-Hm. Ok. Odd. So I take the bike and ride off after the house is on fire and there is some sort of dialogue that pops up each screen I ride through. It goes: He is not well. What do his thoughts say? It is unclear. He is in pain."
-John stops the bike because he cant go any further and needs water. I check my inventory really quick and the amethyst geode is burst into pieces. He doesnt say it directly, but Im assuming thats what stopped the bullet. One mystery solved, at least!
-Well I manage to stagger one more screen before John lays down to look at the stars and maybe possibly die.
-PULL THROUGH JOHN YOU CAN DO IT!
-John: I remember the stars. I remember them quite well. Sometimes theythey shimmer. Yknow, those arent bad last words John.
-Oh nevermind he keeps talking. Sorry I thought you were going out with something cool.
-AHHH THAT ISNT A STAR IM BEING ABDUCTED. My hat doesnt make it. Aliens! Go back and abduct my hat, please
-Ill just type out the whole ending for the curious. We get a little scroll. It was John Kornfield who tipped Chief Robertson to the bizarre discovery at the Gannet Estate. Thirty-eight people were recovered from a well on the property. All of them are understood to be alive and willing to share their stories with local police despite threats from federal authorities who had been scheduled to take over the investigation. Sources at the scene, the officers who entered the well, were overheard describing a rather harrowing sight. Its a damned ancient tomb, exclaimed one of the officers. Ive never seen anything like it in all my life. The evening of Henry Altons memorial will not soon be forgotten. What this means for the esteemed family cannot be certain at this time. Well be providing daily updates to this remarkable breaking story in section F9. Anyone who has information on the whereabouts of John Kornfield is encouraged to speak to the police.
-What a cool game. Really enjoyed that one. Reminds me of a not as good version of Night In The Woods, but that isnt meant to be an insult because I just really, really like that game.
-Fun, weird story. Cool mechanics. Very noir feeling to things. I have some minor complaints but overall that was great.
-All those other adventure games I played I shouldve been harder on. You can make a great adventure game for the Playdate they just didnt know how!

Time Played: I think total run time is close to five hours which means this is a full game!
High Score: One rich cult defeated
Beaten? Yes
Grade: I think this is like a low eight. Like a "great" but just barely. I liked it a lot but there were some parts of the story that could've been better and I wish the puzzles were just a bit more difficult. Thoroughly enjoyable for what it was though.
Favorite Part So Far: The ending was just about as good as I could've hoped for.

Still Playing: Saturday Edition (Finale)

Thoughts:
-I cant really do much of anything. No one is around except at the park, and thats just a bunch of nameless nobodies. I guess I go to Heaven.
-The doorman at Heaven is the same animation as the angel at the start of the game. I don't know if this means anything or not.
-I give my real name like an idiot and the guy is like yeah, no, you cant go in. John you dummy.
-Another guy shows up, flashes his hand and just walks in. Uh hey man I have a hand too let me just wiggle it a bit and no? Still cant get in? Drats.
-I got to call Margaret since shes in with these people. She says they all have a marking on their wrist and I ask her to come down to the mall to give me my very own so I can sneak in. Im sure mall kiosks are overflowing with henna tattoo options.
-Margaret draws it on my wrist for me. Its a moth. Suitably creepy for a rich old cult, I suppose.
-Margaret: Are you going to do something stupid? Considering Im widely known as the alien abduction guy and everyone in there should know Im not a part of their weird cult, yeah, pretty stupid Id say.
-John: I cant say what Im going to do. Margaret: You cant tell me? "No I can't pronounce it."
-John: No, Margaret, thats not it. I simply have no idea. John I might advise you to rethink your plan. In that you should have one.
-John: Maybe I can tell you first thing in the morning? Tell you how it went. Yeah, fun first date. One small issue is that youll likely be dead by then.
-John: I brought my pilikin for you. Its in my car if you want to see it Hey baby want to come back to my car to see my weird alien footy pajamas? Never mind, I take it back. John has game.
-John asks Margaret if she wants to keep it and she says no. It fits you so well, John. And it has a very positive energy. Thats exactly what I say when someone tries to give me clothes I dont want, too.
-She thinks I should wear it to the memorial tonight. Better than the trenchcoat Ive been wearing, I guess. Still think alien guy thats been all over the news is going to draw attention though.
-I go up and talk to the doorman, like an idiot. And say there was a misunderstanding earlier, like a double idiot. Somehow it works and he lets me in. He shouldve been like uh you know I saw you look at that guy and then you left for an hour and now you come back and then pick me up by the scruff of my neck and toss me out.
-First thing I can inspect inside this place is ice cream. MORE PLEASE
-We got someone on the violin, someone on the harp, a bunch of rich people in dark clothing. Ritualistic sacrifice when?
-There is some sort of performance going on, which means I have time to sneak around since everyone is distracted. Thanks whatever the hell is going on in the back.
-Its like a ring of people holding hands above their head and moving around in a circle. "Cool"
-I grab a snack from each table and then decide its time to leave. John did you come here to investigate or to raid their dessert service?
-I go out the back and notice the white truck parked here that I saw in the footage. KIDNAPPERS! I TOLD YOU JOHN! RICH ASSHOLE KIDNAPPERS!
-I open up the truck and two henchmen immediately come out. Good timing, John.
Shorter man: I recognize you. This is the guy from the newspaper. Gee my plan of having no plan and being the most famous guy in town somehow didnt work.
-They ask what I saw and I say nothing, and the taller guy is like hes lying the truck is wide open. John you are so bad at this.
-They shoot me and the screen turns black. WHAT THE HELL THIS BETTER NOT BE THE ENDING
-It isnt. Phew.
-I somehow survive. Not sure how. They apparently shot me, tossed me in the dumpster, and went back inside. These guys are even worse at their job than I am!
-Was I wearing my special bulletproof pilikin?
-Apparently, no. I have a flattened bullet now and all John can think is that something flattened it. It ripped a hole through his pilikin and trenchcoat, but not him for some reason. Strange.
-I try opening the truck again and this time it works. Damn. I was hoping to get stuck in a loop where they kept shooting me and then throwing me in the dumpster and confusedly coming back outside two minutes later.
-Inside the truck John finds transmission equipment. Fancy stuff though, not my poor people stuff.
-I start listening and it is a weird radio recording. Probably The Darkest Hour from earlier. And it sounds like some sort of attempt at hypnosis. Either that or its the worlds most boring radio program ever.
-Before I can hear the count down from one hundred, I hear someone open the back door again. Thank you for saving me from that scene, whoever you are.
-John quickly closes the door to the van and hides behind boxes. Better than getting shot again, I guess.
-Well the van starts so I guess were going on a field trip! Hopefully to an amusement park and not a kidnapping emporium.
-The engine stops, someone leaves, and then its quiet for a bit. Ok, time to get out and see where the hell Im at.
-Huge mansion. Yep, rich people cult confirmed. Time to get out of here before they eat my liver to preserve their youth.
-Theres a rusty old bike leaning against one of the walls, but for some reason John doesnt use it to ride away screaming for help.
-John does a smart thing for once and just doesnt walk through the front door. We sneak through the side and find a back entrance nice.
-He also does a not smart thing and sticks his head way too far into a well to try and see and loses his hat. Damn. It completed the look. Now the trenchcoat and pajama robe looks silly.
-So inside is an insanely long table. There is a bucket of black sand and a really old looking book. Not a good start here.
-John: Liturgy of the NestLiturgy of the Harvest..no, these arent recipes. Oh God, John, you think? Which one of the horrific chapters titles tipped you off?
-Also in case youre dumb like me and didnt know what liturgy meant, it is a form according to which public worship is conducted. So my rich asshole cult is all but confirmed.
-John decides he doesnt have time and leaves the book. Dude, READ THAT. Arent you curious what the hell this crazy cult is doing?
-Also on the table is an empty wicker basket. Thats at least less threatening. Maybe this family just likes to shop at Hobby Lobby.
-Theres a locked door and a phone here too, but John cant use either just yet. Well then, Im stuck.
-Oh nevermind. Some maid comes walking in to uh fluff the flowers? Is that what youre doing.
-I decide to talk to her because I cant do anything else. Hopefully my tattoo tricks her better than the guys that shot me.
-Lady: Everything is in order for the Chrysalis! God, lady, Im not sure there is a combination
of words I wanted to hear less right now.
-Lady: The ring is basted five times! Oh ok nevermind you found one.
-Lady: All the fight is out of them. Ooooh boy. Lady, you are the master of not fun sentences, you know that?
-Lady: Well be wanting for spice after this evening. What does that mean???
-Well at least I get a note on Chrysalis. I use this on the giant book and find a chapter on it. Im sure this wont be horrifying, so lets go.
-Book: The ritual for transmutation. The hand passing the crown rises from the Earth protected by a convoy of serfs. Honorable and wholesome in its construction. John: What? Same John. Same.
-Book: Enter candle maidens. Aw hell yeah candle maidens. Now were getting to the good stuff.
-Book: Lead in hymn in the fourth hour. Lead in procession to Chrysalis. Aw man nevermind. These arent the cool sort of candle maidens.

Spoilers: Unless Saturday Edition completely fumbles the ending, it is going to wind up 1 or 2 on my rankings.

Crankin' is the only other Playdate game I've played that falls in that "really good almost great" sort of range. Another high 7/low 8 kinda thing. The game Saturday Edition currently reminds me most of is Night In The Woods, which is high praise because I love that game. It isn't as good as that. It is pretty clearly a tier below that, but I don't necessarily mean that as an insult because I really, really liked Night In The Woods.

Saturday Edition doesn't quite have that level of character development or world building, but most adventure games don't. It is a little below that just in terms of charm and personality, too. But it is sort of close-ish, which is honestly way more than I was expecting going into it. I think character development is where it is the furthest off, but at the same time it is giving me very noir-y vibes and I think some of the understated characters here are a result of that.

Of course maybe the ending is nothing but incoherent duck noises so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But, yes, it was nice to actually really like something on the Playdate. I don't want to always be negative haha.

-Oh ok interesting theres a bit more meat to their theory. They think it is a blimp covered in Christmas lights, meant to serve as a distraction to what is actually going on. Which is?
-Ok well they dont know that part. But the feds might take over the case it sounds like with a focus on the UFO stuff. Chief is pursuing it as something else and plans to keep doing his job. You go get them, chief.
-The Gannet name gets some interesting responses. Chief knows them. Theyre apparently a wine company that owns a bunch of wineries along the cost. I mention the weirdo that talked to me and that seems to get his attention. Since Kornfield didnt get a name, there isnt much to go on and the Chief overall doesnt seem too concerned because people in general have been getting worked up about the alien stuff.
-Kornfield doesnt bring up the fact that he brought up the possibility of a serial butcher unprompted, which was the most suspicious part of the whole interaction. KORNFIELD CMON MAN I KNOW YOU ARENT A DETECTIVE BUT YOU GOTTA REMEMBER THIS STUFF.
-I also get the name of a lawyer, for some reason. Chief brings it up but Im not quite sure why. I get a note on him though so I might be able to check the phone directory again.
-I tell Chief about Ruth Pike, too, and Chief doesnt seem to think it matters much.
-John: I guess she loved plants. Chief: Everybody loves plants, Kornfield. I dont know what to make of it. Yeah Kornfield gotta agree with the chief on that one. I dont even know what the connection here is supposed to be. Ok so people went missing in 1953 and someone died in 1953 and now people are missing again and someone died again? Sowhat? What are you getting at and why even focus in on the date? Im confused.
-Chief doesnt want to get the Pikes involved if he doesnt have to. Sound powerful. Yeah ok chief but have you considered she died a year other stuff happened? Hm? HMMM?
-This does trigger something else though. Chief goes on to say theyve dug around in older records and found many more missing person events. Going back through the years pretty frequently. WE REALLY ARE DEALING WITH PENNYWISE! Or some sort of rich person cult or something. Not sure.
-John: Whats a normal amount of missing persons? John I get what youre asking but that is a sentence you never want to say to a cop because its going to get you put on a list.
-Chief sort of gets it though. Most years only have a handful through a year and they get resolved within a couple of days.
-This is a really fun story but one weird thing now: how the fuck did someone not notice huge clumps of people disappearing all at once in specific years? That seems like something even a little routine police work wouldve uncovered.
-Oh ok that lawyer is the lawyer for Gannet Wines. Thats why the Chief brought him up.
-Ty pages me. Another job?
-Uh no. He just wants to talk about how cool the park was. And how excited Annas been. More excited about this than shes been in years. Thatsdepressing.
-Like I get that the alien thing is cool, but at the same time you think more people would be like oh shit 30 people are gone what the hell happened to them?
-Ooh Ty isnt all gushing about aliens. He knows about Garret Wines. It is where the Altons got their start, apparently. INTERESTING.
-John is like how do you even know that? and Ty is like uh I read it in the paper this morning. Dammit John. Thats what you get for telling me you didnt need the newspaper when I checked the stand.
-Kornfield keeps thinking back to what the weirdo said. Stick to the alien story. People like it. Yeah, people like that better than the rich people killing everyone story I feel like things are heading towards.
-Well its Sunday. Two days left. I feel like the twists will be coming soon.
-Uh oh. Kess says Anna was supposed to be at the park two hours ago but never showed up. She left the park at like 11 last night so she could listen to The Darkest Hour. THATS HOW PEOPLE GET DISAPPEARED, YOU FOOL!
-Well time to go tell Ty his daughter is dead and mutilated.
-I tell Ty and he is way too nonchalant. Oh maybe she slept in. No, thats not the appropriate response, you dork. More along the lines of OH MY GOD 30 PEOPLE HAVE GONE MISSING CALL THE COPS OH MY BABY GIRL. Put your heart into it, man.
-The receptionist is back at Alfalfa Tower. She left at five so she didnt see the weirdo talking to me and she never heard of the lawyer I ask her about. USELESS.
-Except not useless! Not useless at all! She recognizes the match book. It is for an event space called Heaven that is also owned by Gannet. She gives me the address and I skip along my merry way.
-Margaret is back, and shes got juicy info for me. That Gary Lowell guy is her ex-husband. Oh boy.
-Ok so Gary worked for the Hawthornes, which is some other big family. Margaret got to know them, the Altons, the Pikes, and the Farewoods. All big families in town. Theyre very strange people, John. I KNEW IT! MURDER BILLIONAIRES! THEY HAVE A MURDER CLUB!
-Margaret: These people just inherited some funny traditions. Ok, you got to tell me about murder club. Unless the first rule of murder club is you cant talk about murder club.
-She mentioned that Gary changed when Robert Hawthorne died, back in 1972. UH OH.
-So Pike dies in 53, people go missing. Hawthorne dies in 72. People go missing. Alton dies now and more people go missing. What the hell are they doing with the people?!
-So Hawthorne died in 72, but they kept that a secret for three years before announcing it. Why? And how? And why?
-Hey Chief! I got news Chief!
-Oh Chief is sad. Poor Chief.
-Feds are coming tomorrow to take everything over. Theyve been tracking the ship for days, they told him. Maybe you stop relaying messages from federal agents to me, chief. Im a lock installation guy and dont have the clearance for this.
-Some lady also followed the ship, and she saw something different. Like they thought, its a dirigible. Cool word by the way.
-Apparently it was remote controlled. Six guys took it down out in the woods and Chief is having some guys track them down. Hey, actual police work!
-Aw man he tells me to stop coming by. Itll complicate things with the feds and also everyone things Im crazy. Yeah, fair.
-He gives me his home phone and tell me to contact him if anything comes up. Hey Kornfield! Kornfield! Mention the lawyer guy and rich people dying the years disappearances happen. Tell him Kornfield!
-He doesnt tell him. Drats.
-Well time to go check out heaven. Hey wait I just realized that was the opening scene in the game, sort of. I was wondering how getting into the pearly gates tied into everything.
-I drop by Heaven and theres people moving around inside, but I cant get in because it is closed for a private event. Altons funeral? HMMMMM? Kornfield thinks so too and goes home to get some rest before crashing it.
-Oh, thats it! End of scene. Im entering the final one now which is Sunday night.
-I really want to finish but Im too tired. Looks like Ill tie up the mystery tomorrow. Sorry Anna! Hope youre not ritualistically sacrificed by then.

Time Played: Probably a solid three hours. And I'm not done yet! Hooray full game.
High Score: 7 days beat. 1 "day" to go.
Beaten? Close, but no.
Grade: It'll depend on the ending, but I'm pretty sure it'll be a 7 or 8. Somewhere in that good to very good to great range.
Favorite Part So Far: The whole thing is just kinda cool. I like the noir mystery vibes I'm getting.

-He did not miss the morning news. Great. Asks me about the thing they found and Kornfield fesses up like AN IDIOT. Chief tells me that I need a permit to transmit radio. Great. Add that to my list of tickets, please.
-Oh thats basically all he says. Adds a little bit about the cat being out of the bag on the park connection, but thats it. I thought for sure I was going to get yelled at. Aw yeah no parking tickets for this guy.
-I share my info with the chief. Not because Im afraid of getting more parking tickets heh heh heh no not that at all. Just being a good citizen.
-For some reason Kornfield omits the white van info. I hand over the tapes though so maybe the chief can find it himself.
-He gives me some info, too. Each car they found at that park was tuned to the same radio station. 88.5 CXM. THE MORNING HITS AND THE EVENING HYPNOSIS is their slogan, so someone shouldve pieced that together earlier.
-Whoa Anna has info on 88.5 CXM. It is the college radio station and there is a late night program shes fond of called The Darkest Hour. They tell beautiful and haunting stories. Got it so basically Are You Afraid of the Dark?
-Any of those stories involve driving to the park and disappearing, out of curiosity?
-So I bring that tidbit to the chief and hes like yeah I know we didnt find any foul play. Damn.
-Chief: My wife listens to that program all the time. And shes been missing since 1953 so HEY WAIT JUST A MINUTE.
-I get a page (is that the right verb?) from Ty and he tells me I have an install over at Alfalfa Tower. That is the worst tower name Ive ever heard of, but ok.
-Well I go to do the install and some weird writer comes out to talk to me about aliens for half an hour. And the old unit they had is pretty new and in perfect condition. Im beginning to think this was a set up, guys.
-This guy sure loves talking about aliens. Hey can you move out of my light Im trying to work.
-Guy: Whatever happens, John, you cant denyIts brought tremendous hope to the community. The disappearances? Are you sure? You guys feel hope? Oh boy this string of missing people sure makes me hopeful for a future with low property costs because of no one being around to buy anything.
-Guy: With hope you can truly do anything. You can elevate an entire city. Excuse me who the hell are you and is it too late to run away screaming?
-He goes on to tell me he thinks I let a lot of people down with my interview. Ok. Coooool. John how fast can you install a key pad because we really need to get out of here.
-Guy: You see, John, they know what happened to you. They care about what you have to say. Mm hm. Sure. So what are you mad about?
-He wants me to stop with my conspiracy theories and stick with the alien stuff. Im not sure that sentence has ever been uttered before, but ok.
-Hes upset I put the idea of a serial killer in their head. Did I do that? I dont remember doing that.
Also this guy is clearly a serial killer trying to hide his murders behind alien abductions isnt he?
HEY TALK LESS ABOUT SERIAL KILLERS THERE ARE NO SERIAL KILLERS ITS ALIENS YOU GET ME. Yeah man I get you I get you just please let me see my friends again, ok?
-John: Wow. Sort of a strange guy. Oh, you think?!?!
-Well he leaves and it is now Saturday. I check the menu and there are two days beyond this still, so I got until Monday to solve everything and hopefully not get murdered by clearly a serial killer guy.
Wow the park is PACKED. Someone build a UFO replica thing in the background. Pretty sure you guys have guaranteed whatever is going on is going to stop unless this alien spaceship has a Uhaul attached to it for all the overflow they're going to get.
-Anna is here! She brought her friend Kess, who looks a bit dopey.
-John gets why Anna wants to be here with all the people. He says the park has a good energy. And probably an unrelenting BO problem.
-He wishes he had something good to share with her. That shes believed his story from the beginning. She happened to be 12 at the time, and it seems kind of weird to be telling a 12 year old about your harrowing abduction story, Kornfield, but ok.
-Kornfield: What do you think Kess? Kess: I dont know. Ah yes you got roped into your girlfriends weird UFO hobby too, huh?
-The tower is now empty, but I can check the directory inside and I see theres only one company here: Gannet. So weird guy works for Gannet. Good to know.
-I think of using the Garnet info on the phone booth outside the mall, but that doesnt work. I then think of trying to call Lee with the Lee info and it does work! Apparently his lease is out but theres some new space on the other side of the mall hes considering. Intersting
-Also pretty cool this puzzle has been sitting unsolved for a couple of days and I can just do it now. Im curious if things change at all or if this was just luckily the first day I could call Lee.
-The sign for the lottery at the mall has been replaced by an in memoriam thing about Henry Alton. Kornfield comments hes not a handsome man. Hey man stop bullying the dead guy!
-Hm. Interesting. John comments there are a lot of dates on this thing, and I use the 1953 missing people note and find someone else tied to Alton died that year. A Ruth Pike, who he named the garden in this mall after. That seems like a coincidence more than anything, but it uses up the note and gives me a Ruth Pike note instead, so it is clearly doing something!
-I can also try to use the matchbook on it, but Kornfield says he wont set it on fire. Hey man I was just trying to see if that symbol appeared anywhere! Dont you blame your arson thoughts on me.
-Actually there is different dialogue when I look at Lees store today. Something about it being empty and cleared out. So maybe this was the first day I could call him and I just got lucky.
-Police Chief is apparently in hot water with the feds. Theyre not happy with how hes handling things. Yeah, 30+ missing people tend to raise eyebrows, I guess.
-Police Chief: They dont like our response to the footage. They dont think were taking it seriously. Well every time I come in here youre sitting reclining with your feet on your desk and as far as I can tell Im doing most of the investigative work for you. Somaybe theyre right?
The police chief is still not convinced the sightings people are seeing are really a UFO. Lieutenant Daniels has a reasonable take. It could be a dirigible. Got it so the unidentified flying object isnt an unidentified flying object, but actually some sort of flying object, the specifics of which you havent identified yet.
-Do you guys see why the feds are mad at you guys yet?

Still Playing: Saturday Edition (Part II)

More Thoughts:
-Ok. I check the checkpoint from the menu and weve finished four and have five left to go. So not quite halfway through just yet.
-Well lets go find us some aliens. Or astral traveling. Or love? Or all three? At once?
-Ew its raining outside. Rain, rain, go away, or my transmitter will not play.
-Another message from Gerald at the news station. He begs me to call him back because this is bigger than me or something or other. Is it bigger than 47 unpaid parking tickets? Doubt it.
-There is a cockroach in the hallway. John comments on how he used to hate them and it scurries away. Diddid that do something?
-The transmitter on the roof did indeed stop. CALLED IT. Rain, please leave. Youre ruining my attempts to contact aliens.
-John does see the video of the ship on the news and comments that it does look like an Uviel ship, but he doesnt get why theyd be so careless all of a sudden. Interesting.
-Well Ty isnt in the office, and Im assuming Anna wont be at the beach since its raining. Ill go talk to Margaret instead!
-Margaret wants to know what it was like coming back to Earth. Probably pretty lame, if I had to guess.
-John: They took me to a farm up just south of Hanover. Yes, yes, we know what people do when they have unwanted pets.
-He went back to his apartment after that, hoping to run into Sarah. Ex-girlfriend? No clue, but she wasnt there. He called Ty instead, who was there to help. SEE SARAH, I DONT NEED YOU ANYMORE.
-Although I guess you go to live with aliens for five years, your girlfriend (?) is right to leave you. I wouldnt try to out wait an alien abduction either.
-John: I dont know why, but I felt really good that day. I wouldve given anything to stay on Vanien. But I missed my friends, Margaret. Not enough to come back after 3 or 4 years, but after 5 it was definitely time.
-John brings up the alien footage, and Margaret says she hasnt seen it yet because shes too busy. Ok, yeah, sure, you let me know what you were so busy with that takes precedent over definitive proof aliens exist.
-I check in with the chief who has finally done some police work. They dug through old reports and found that in 1953, 17 total people went missing. We might be dealing with Pennywise here, folks.
-Chief also gives more info on the missing cars, which all turned up in Farefield Park. The bad news there is that also happens to be where Kornfield met the aliens when they abducted in. Apparently it is the Uviel's favorite vacation spot.
-Oooh new location on the map! I can now go to Farefield Park. BUT FIRST Im going to go back to the office to see if Ty is in yet.
-Yep hes in. TY TELL ME ABOUT THE MISSING PEOPLE IN 1953!
-Hes just like huh and thats it. SOME HELP YOU ARE TY.
-Couple of things of note at the park: a pack of matches with a weird symbol on the front, and a street sign showing Pacific. Kornfield muses thats the same street he works, and suddenly those cctv camera out front of our building have a purpose.
-You can look around the park, but there isnt too much to see. Kornfield wonders if the missing people were summoned here, but he doesnt think that sounds like the Uviel. He wonders if he was summoned here too, but doesnt seem to remember. Guy, you have to remember your abduction better. It has to be like a top five important event in your life!
-Ok, now were getting somewhere. I bring the note to the cctv cameras which gives Kornfield the idea to talk to Ty, and Ty then hands over the tapes for me to review. IM A DETECTIVE! Well, some sort of lock install engineer, but a noir-y detective-y one.
-Actually Johns work is kind of weird, considering how this game is playing out. It definitely has noir vibes, and his work as a lock installer doesnt really come up. Seems like making him a detective wouldve been an logical change. Curious if it plays a role later on.
-Oh, nice. I use the tapes in my vcr, and then the newspaper report on the tv that talks about the missing cars. I manage to see two of the missing vehicles right before they go missing. Each one drove by at roughly 1245 AM and each one was followed by a white truck afterwards. Kornfield muses that its probably nothing. Im beginning to see why this guy isnt a detective.
-I wake up the next morning and theres a reporter at my door! Ugh. How do I know its a reporter? Uh, good question. Kornfield just says it looks like a reporter and refuses to open the door.
-Someone took the transmitter and Walkman off the roof. Yeah, maybe leaving multiple pieces of expensive machinery unattended for a lengthy period of time was not the best idea.
-Aw farts. The reporters are also camped out at the bottom of the fire escape. This one I also know is a reporter because theres a guy pointing a giant tv camera at me.
-This is Leanne Hayworth with Channel 7 news. Pretty solid reporter name, honestly.
-LEAVE ME ALONE I HAVE PARKING TICKETS TO CONSIDER!
-Leanne: Do you have a brief moment to speak with us? John run away man it isnt worth it.
-He goes ahead and talks to them. OOOOOF. I hope you have 53k to pay off that mountain of parking tickets, man.
-Welp shes the one who stole my device and she listened to the tape. Wow. Great job, genius. Now youre never going to get those parking tickets paid.
-Kornfield tries to downplay things but her finding that caught him off guard. She keeps hammering him for info and its kind of hard to play dumb when theres a recording on the roof saying hey Uviel it is me John Kornfield. I definitely believe you are connected to things and come get me I want a burger.
-John: I think some funny things are going on. HAHAHA 21 PEOPLE ARE MISSING HAHAHA oh wait I meant tragic yes tragic.
-John you idiot. Hes like I dont think the same thing that happened to me is happening now. Nobody knows whats happening. Nobody knows what happened in 72. Nobody knows what happened in 53 AH DANG IT DANG IT FORGET I SAID THAT.
-Yeah the reporter didnt know about anything from 53 either. Way to blab, blabby.
-Ty looks at me and is immediately like Whats wrong? Whats with that look on your face. TY I BLEW IT ALL I NEED A LOAN MAN I CANT PAY ALL THESE PARKING TICKETS.
-Newspaper says Henry Alton died at 78. I still dont know who that is, but ok.
-Park is full with people this time, but I cant do anything there. Nothing really to do at the office either, so I head over to the mall.
-Kornfield thinks he likes the sond of Margarets voice. Ok, maybe tell her that instead of talking about your favorite food courts this time.
-John: You know, electronics use crystals. Theyre used to measure time. OH GOD KEEP THE WEIRD ALARM CLOCK GUY AWAY FROM CRYSTALS GUYS! He's going to give us a clock that measures time by the beams of light that refract off of the crystal imperfections and I already lost my ability to tell time last time I played that game.
-Also, that doesnt sound true but I dont know enough about electronics or crystals to disprove it. Maybe this is all just part of Johns hilarious flirting technique.
-John and Margaret talk about crystals for a while and I start looking for a fire escape of my own to sneak out of.
-On to the beach, where Anna adds nothing of value. I thought she was going to recognize the matchbook, but nope. Ive asked everyone about it now
-There is a new ice cream flavor: cosmic swirl. Sounds better than orange licorice, at least.
-Well uh time to go apologize to the chief.

TotallyNotMI posted...

A man went to he doctor, depressed. He said Playdate games are harsh and cruel, and he feels like he's the only person playing Playdate games that are vague and uncertain in controls and story. The doctor says 'Treatment is simple, snarky asshole Suprak has a topic about Playdate, go and read that. That should pick you up.' The man bursts into tears and says 'But doctor, I am the snarky asshole Suprak!'

My first reaction was "what is snarky asshole?"

My second reaction was "fuck why didn't I call this "A Snarky Asshole Plays Every Playdate Game"?!?!

Welcome!

what is snarky asshole?

-Theres some way I can loop it and John says hell figure it out. I hope there is a loop button on the transmitter because thats about all I know about transmitters.
-John asks Anna what she put on the tape. Well I told them who you are. And where to find you. And that youd like to go back to Vanien. And maybe bring a few friends this time around. Anna was this whole thing your pitch to get a free vacation?
-Anna is all in on the alien abduction thing. She thinks all those people in 1972 were taken by the Vanien as well but Kornfield isnt so sure. Likley on account of not seeing them when he was there.
I show Anna my geode and shes very impressed. Yes, yes, Im aware of the effect I have on women.
-Tyler pages me. Time to go back to the office, I guess.
-Tyler excitedly tells me people got a video of the spaceship! And its on the news! And John is thoroughly unimpressed. He begrudgingly admits it is interesting to himself, but thats it. John why do you have to be such an alien party pooper, man?
-I show him the tape Anna made and he helps me create that loop, so thats one bit of the puzzle down at least.
-I do laugh because this scene is the first time all game I feel the Playdate struggling with what they want to do. It is a conversation like Lets go inside (two hours later) Now we just need to loop it (six minutes later) I have to go to dinner, but youre almost done (one hour later). Ive actually enjoyed the mood of the game so far this is the first time it feels cheap to me where there probably had to be a better way to do this that conveyed what was going on without it feeling like a gag almost.
-I get the transmitter connected and hook up the tape. ALIENS. COME GET ME.
-This feels like a good stopping point.
-All in all, pretty impressive so far. The puzzles are a bit easy but I like that format here and the game overall is charming and interesting. The plot has me intrigued. Im down. Definitely one of the better Playdate games Ive played so far!
-Unless things go off the rails in the back half. I take no responsibility for that.

Time Played: I think already two hours or so. Times flies when you're detectiving so I'm not positive.
High Score: No high scores, but I did talk to one cute girl about my food court experience, so that's something.
Beaten? No not yet
Grade: This is heavily story based so it really depends on the ending, but right now it is in the 7-8 range pretty easily.
Favorite Part So Far: The way the guard at the Pearly Gates lowers his sunglasses to look at you when he talks. What a fun animation.

-They send me down to the police chief and this dude is lounging back with his feet up on the desk. -Hey man youre TOO casual. We have aliens straight up snatching up people 30 at a time. I need you hunched over your desk looking stressed out as hell, not like youre the cool kid in detention.
-They called me down here because they think I might be able to help on all the recent disappearances on account of me previously being kidnapped.
-Police Chief: Frankly, I dont believe in aliens. Then why do you think I can help? Hey this guy is probably crazy and made up the whole getting kidnapped by aliens thing. Maybe he can crack this 30 missing person case for us!
-Police Chief: There were seventeen other disappearances in 1972. Ohhhh. Very interesting. First time Im hearing about this. Wonder what happened to the other 16.
-Kornfield is caught offguard about this too. And those 16 people never came back, unlike Kornfield. -Very interesting indeed.
-Chief actually doesnt want me talking to the media because it would make things a lot more complicated if they run with this whole alien abduction thing he doesnt believe in. Fair.
-Oooh he wants to know if theres anything he can do to help make it worth it to keep quiet. Goodbye 27 unpaid parking tickets heh heh heh.
-You can ask the chief about the missing people, but it doesnt sound like they figured much out. It happened over a short period, stopped, and then eventually John came back. Thats about it.
-Not great police work, guys. Pretty bad when your answer like 15 years later is I dunno it was weird man.
-Cough cough so about those parking tickets
-Police Chief: Parking violations? Some of these are almost nine years old. Hey some of those missing people cases are over nine years old and you never took care of them either. Really want to compare notes, chief?
-The chief was already aware of the parking tickets and was going to use it as leverage I think if I didnt bring it up. Cool. So uh we good then?
-Hes like oh yeah some people in the department believe in the abduction theory but I dont think you were abducted in 1972 but we can have disagreements do you understand John. Um. No? Are you hinting at something or just rambling because youre over the age of 60?
-He reminds me the media arent my friends, and to stay quiet if I want them to forget about those parking tickets. Dammit John were getting blackmailed because you couldnt stop parking your car on top of fire hydrants, you lunatic.
-One final interesting tidbit is every single one of the missing peoples cars are also missing, so its like they all drove somewhere.
-The day isnt over yet, so I got back to talk to Ty. Hes usually got something to say on all the items I pick up.
-I show him Margarets card and hes unimpressed. Ty doesnt understand rocks and minerals. Wow what a SCATHING indictment. Poor Ty.
-I bring up 1972 but doesnt really get any good info. Ty says they almost went out of business and John apologizes, but says he doesnt regret going to Vanien. It was irresponsible for me to leave. I ran away. But I dont regret it. Uh how did you run away to an alien planet?
-I go to leave and see another ticket on my windshield. DAMMIT KORNFIELD STOP PARKING SO BADLY.
-Kornfield stops to think about how nice Margaret is to talk to. Yeah you sure wooed her with all that food court talk, my guy.
-And now its Wednesday! Ive got a strange feeling this game is going to end when I get to Saturday.
-TWO messages on my answering machine. Well well well look whos Mr. Popular now that we have 30 unexplained disappearances that may be connected to 17 unexplained disappearances that involve me.
-Lame its just two reporters. Sorry guys I have unpaid parking tickets to think of.
-Hm. Ty isnt at the office today. BUT hes left the transmitter on his desk. John says itll need to be put somewhere high and yes, yes, I get that it goes on the roof already.
-John picks up the newspaper at the mall today because it talks about the missing vehicles. Pockets starting to get full here
-Margaret knows who I am now! She read it in the paper. I swear Im not a crazy person.
-John once again slow playing things, I cant say for sure where I was Margaret. But, it sures hell wasnt here. It was AKRON OHIO OH GOD THE HUMANITY.
-Margaret: I dont think its so unusual. Things in this world arent always what they seem. What about things off of this world? Because thats specifically what I was talking about.
-Margaret: Are you aware of the astral plane? I feel like thats the question you get from a cute girl at a party in college that immediately ends your plans for the night.
-Margaret: Well our experience is comprised of seven planes. OH NO WHAT HAVE I STARTED.
-Margaret seems to believe that people can travel between planes and spirit travel and jump between existences and I saw Principal Skinner and Ms. Krabbaple kissing in the closet and they made a baby and the baby waved at me.
-Are all these people astral projecting or something weird? Was John Kornfield astral projecting? -Hey, crazy lady at the mall, please help me solve this very difficult police case.
-Margaret: It is all very well documented. That is another thing said exclusively by crazy people to validate the dumb thing they read on the internet.
-Margaret is convinced that John astral traveled and John asks if she has any crystal that could help him do it again. Oh man, the things youll believe if a cute girl says it to you. John youre about to be out $500 for a lump of zirconium.
-Yeah I buy the pretty crystal at the end of the table for a cool $50 to help with astral traveling. -Margaret takes 25% off so it is definitely NOT a scam.
-Lees is still closed, and its been closed long enough now that it gets added to my evidence. Lee have you been kidnapped or astral traveling or going to Akron for the worlds saddest vacation?
-Back to the beach! Anna is here again and I got stuff to show her. Like a glass shard?
-Oh, even better! Anna got excited and made me a tape for the transmitter. I hadnt returned to the roof yet so I didnt even know I needed one! Puzzle accidentally solved aw yeah.
-John asks how long it is and Anna says it is only thirty seconds, but it should be enough. Im going to imagine it is just Anna yelling STOP. STEALING. ADULTS. over and over until proved otherwise.

-I need to go find her at the beach, because she runs an ice cream stand down there. And if I sneak in a quick game of volleyball, no one will even notice
-I show him note about the parking tickets and it starts with him saying hey man you got to pay that to geez did you hear a 29th person went missing yesterday. Great segue, man.
-Also 29?!?! Remind me to lock all my doors jeez people are disappearing left and right.
-Ty also thinks maybe that cop was at my door because these people going missing coincides with a bunch of people seeing weird flashing lights up in the sky.
-Kornfield, the aliens are back and this time theyre snatching up everyone! You got to do something man!
-but first let me go to the mall to grab those coaxial cables I was asked about.
-Newspaper in the malls top story is about Henry Altons health issues. Am Iuhsupposed to know who that is?
-Theres this little kiosk at the mall and Kornfield finds himself drawn to a weird rock. Jeez this is like taking my kids to the mall. No, you cant get the weird twinkly rock. No, it isnt anything special put it down. Dont listen to that lady shes just trying to sell you junk.
-Lady: Quartz might help with your slouch. See? Called it. The saleswoman is a weirdo trying to sell you junk, Kornfield!
-Lady: Do you believe in the healing power of nature, sir. Kornfield you dummy this is your cue to keep your eyes down and keep walking. Have you never been harassed by mall salespeople before?
-I feel like the healing power of nature is a phrase that is uttered by medical professionals talking about specific salves and balms like 1% of the time and people trying to get you to jam a quartz crystal in your anus for $99.99 the rest of the time.
-Well the electronics store I need to go to is closed. Great. I get harassed by a mall hippie and dont even get my coaxial cables out of the deal.
-Time to go to the beach! Shouldve brought my swimsuit.
-The ice cream stand has three flavors: classic vanilla, mint chocolate chip, and orange licorice. Holy shit what a wild swing on that third flavor. This stand is constantly out of two flavors and has never opened that orange licorice, I guarantee it. Hey what does your restaurant sell We have hamburgers, hotdogs, and deep fried armadillo lung.
-Anna tries to sell me ice cream and fails. Im just here about the message, you can keep your orange licorice flavored abomination, lady.
-She starts to tell me then asks if Ive seen the news and Kornfields just like I dont watch the news and shes like oh ok sorry to bother you. Wait this phone call was dependent on me staying up to date on the news? You maybe want to just tell me what the hell you were going to say anyway?
-Oh ok I show her the note I have about the strange lights and she starts talking. Guess I just needed to prompt her with an item first.
-I do like how Anna and Ty both seem to believe my insane alien abduction story for some reason. I feel like the right response to Kornfield telling you about the five years he lived in an alien zoo is just to politely nod and make sure you have a clear escape plan.
-Kornfield is pretty non-chalant about all of this and is like eh it was 15 years ago I dont remember that well. You dont remember your ALIEN ABDUCTION AND LIVING ON AN ALIEN PLANET all that well? I still remember when I accidentally called my fourth grade teacher mom.
-You dont forget trauma like this, man.
-Anna thinks they might be looking for me. Their plan just to keep abducting people one at a time and hoping the get the right guy? "I told you idiots we should've taken a picture! We're never going to find him at this rate!"
-John thinks that maybe he can put out a radio signal to get in touch with them. Seems like a bad idea since theyre in the process of disappearing people, man.
-Oh ok thats all for the first day. Kornfield leaves saying it doesnt sound like the Uviel because when they snatched him up there were no lights. Maybe they fixed their headlights in the 15 years youve been back?
-New day new message on the machine! Today it is Gerald Davis from KXP-TV. He wants to interview me on account of my crazy story ten years ago and all the lights appearing now. See? Now whos the crazy lunatic in a trenchcoat, Gerald?!?
-No one is outside the door but John still wont go out it. Better safe than sorry. Yeah totally. You know how youre paranoid how people are outside your door and you have to always take the fire escape? Totally normal not crazy person behavior.
-Oh what the hell? The cop is waiting for me at the bottom of the fire escape! Turns out John wasnt crazy enough. I knew I shouldve gone to the roof and used my bounce house secret escape plan.
-Now the number of disappearances has gone up to thirty. I am guessing one of those people I talked to yesterday has been disappeared.
-Haha the cop is like uh it uh says here that in 1976 you had a hm let me check my notes interplanetary experience? Yes asshole I was KIDNAPPED BY ALIENS no need to sugarcoat it.
-Officer: Im not here to bust your balls, sir. Well as long as you pinky promise we can talk.
-The cop says Chief Richardson would like to talk to me in person, then makes a passive aggressive comment asking if my door doesnt work. No, I was just trying to avoid you er I mean yes I always take the fire escape.
-Ok now I can explore the apartment building. Theres nothing of interest. Hooray?
-Im in no rush to talk to the cops so Im going to do everything else first. Uh Ty you got anything for me?
-Kornfield is shockingly unconvinced that the sightings are alien abductions. He talks to Ty and is like yeah I dont know and I feel like he should be like I TOLD ALL YOU PEOPLE THEY ARE SNATCHING US UP.
-Ty lets me know Anna called yesterday and is CONVINCED aliens are behind the disappearances. -Also she was happy to see me. Sorry Ty. Shes got that Kornfield-fever.
-I bring up her idea that I should try to send a radio signal since theyre probably the Uviel, and Ty thinks its a good idea. Pfft you only think that because shes your daughter.
-Ty is going to bring a transmitter from his garage tomorrow. Ok fiiiiiine Ill talk to the aliens.
-Margarent is still at the mall selling her magic moon rocks.
Shes like hey youre back do you work here and John is like SOMETIMES I EAT AT THE FOOD COURT. Dammit John. Youre ruining your chance her man.
-Margaret: Crystal Visions is my business and my passion. Ok cool uh uh do you ever eat at the food court?
-Margaret is convinced shes heard my name before and John is very shy about telling her he is the alien abduction guy so hes just like oh uh have anyone install any security lately. Double smooth, this is going GREAT.
-Bye Margaret Ill be back and less awkward.
-She does give me her business card, so I got that going for me.
-Lees is still closed. Dammit Im never going to get these coaxial cables.
-I pick up random shard of glass at the beach. Aw yeah! Garbage.
-Ok ok fine Ill go to the police station. I wont like it but Ill do it.

Currently Playing: Saturday Edition

What Is It? A noir themed adventure game where you play as a former alien abductee trying to figure out a string of recent disappearances everyone else is linking to aliens.

Gameplay Overview: It is an adventure game in the same vein as Night In The Woods or Distraint. You are on a 2D plane, you walk left to right, and you can interact with certain objects. You can pick up certain objects and certain dialogues give you "notes" that you can use to bring up the subject to other people or sometimes trigger a specific action if you use it in the right spot. Classic adventure game stuff.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/saturday-edition/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/33db10d5.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/42101dfa.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5b73ac3b.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c1bb62b8.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/71b1a5e3.png

Thoughts:
-Ok, so here's the thing. You shouldn't read this if you're planning to get a Playdate ever. The story here is actually a lot of fun, and I'm going to be spoiling it. If you aren't going to get a Playdate, fine. But if you are you should definitely play this game and don't read my thoughts until after.
-You hear me? Go on! Get! GET OUT OF HERE! I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!
-Are they gone? Good.
-I actually played this game like 1.33 times. I got about a third of the way through on a plane ride without taking notes because I was expecting another "Life's Too Short" kind of experience. But then I was like "holy shit this is actually good" and had to stop and start over sometime I could actually write stuff down. My own fault for underestimating a Playdate game, I guess.
-This is a Season 1 title, and it pretty much cements my opinion that the Season 1 games were so much better curated than the catalogue games. It isn't even close at this point.
-On Thursday, February 10, 1972, John Kornfield was taken from Earth and brought to a far away planet, in a far away galaxy, by beings unlike anything he had ever known. Thats right this game starts with an ALIEN ABDUCTION. You guys arent ready for this one.
-These alien beings, called the Uviel, had been studying the human beings of Earth for thousands of years, unsure of any way to safely establish contact given their fragile and defensive nature. You studied us for thousands of years and after all that time you decided to steal a single dude? I feel like you couldve stolen a farmer in 1544 and nobody wouldve known.
-It was finally decided that a single human would be invited to live with the Uviel for a period of time on their home planet, Vanien. Imagine if we were surveying aliens for thousands of years and our big plan was to stick one in an apartment building and see what happens. I feel like NASA would be defunded as soon as that plan hit the presidents desk.
-They declared the experiment a success and John asked to stay there permanently. What makes this experiment a success again? No one ate him?
-As days went by, Johns memory of Earth and his old life began to grow distant. Yeah I guess that would make sense if he lived there for a couple of dec- Four Earth years passed. EXCUSE ME WHAT? He lived there for four years and his memory of Earth grew distant? I still sometimes put my shipping address as my old graduate school apartment building and that was like a decade ago now. I hope they have something to treat memory loss on Vanien.
-At which point there occurred a seismic shift in the structures of power on Vanien, placing Johns life among the Uviel in jeopardy. Wow election year politics are tough on immigrants even in fictional made up universes, huh?
-John was sent home before the new leaders could hurt him. Thanks, I guess? It is going to be hard to explain to my family where I was for four years and why all their grandchildren have antennae.
-This is all if you believe the words of John Kornfield, a 42 year old security technician who his best friend Tyler Egan tells us has always been a pretty honest guy. Oh shit Tyler said that? Well Tyler would never lie to me so I guess Ill believe this guys alien abduction story.
-John was gracious enough to share with us the various details of his journey, including crude drawings of the foreign world. And we do mean crude. There were weird alien genetalia everywhere. Im beginning to think this guy might not be on the up and up, regardless of what Tyler has told us.
-Well be dedicating a full page to the experience of John Kornfield in next weeks Saturday Edition. THEY DID IT! THEY SAID THE THING!
-Uh am I in heaven?
-Yep. Pearly gates. And some buff angel standing guard outside. Ok. Interesting.
-The animation in this game is actually super impressive. You get little character portraits that move and are dynamic. Definitely one of the more visually impressive/aesthetically pleasing games on the Playdate. AND IM ONLY FIVE MINUTES IN FOLKS.
-Angel lets me know Im not on the list. Damn. Oops. Now Im definitely not on the list.
-Theres a numerical key pad on the gates. Got to keep the riff raff out somehow I guess.
-Aw man Im the riff raff, arent I?
-Luckily Im some sort of electronic security EXPERT and I know all about keypads. The angel is lazy and is like hey help me change the code and Ill let you sneak in. Damn heavens security straight up sucks.
-Ok, so the key code is an item and you have to go into the menu and use it on the gate. Tutorial puzzle solved!
-Oh it was all a dream.
-Wow Kornfield you dream about using your knowledge of electronic locks to impress the guy guarding the gates to heaven? Im not sure I can imagine a more boring dream.
-I like the set up to this game. It is one of those 2D sidescrolling adventure games, so every screen is this 2D plane you walk left and right in. Objects you can interact with pop up with an icon and you solve puzzles by using items you pick up in the right spots. It is a great format for an adventure game like this on the Playdate. It looks so much better than all those cheap-o ones I had been playing.
-Anna Egan calls me and tells me to call her back, but doesnt leave a number. Classic Anna.
-The animations in this game have no business being this good, honestly. I get to the door to see a cop outside, and the little picture prompt has this animation of John opening the keyhole, the officers face appears and then zooms in to give a keyhole type effect. What the hell have all these other games been doing?
-I take the fire escape. SEE YA LATER COPPER.
-There is a power outlet on the roof. This is a very odd place for a power outlet and will absolutely be used for a puzzle later in the game.
-I take my car out and theres a map with multiple places to travel to, each with multiple screens and multiple people/things to interact with. Holy shit its like an actual, complete adventure game. WHO WOULDVE THOUGHT?
-I go to the office first because the other option is a mall and I havent wanted to go to the mall since roughly 2014.
-Apparently the cops are after me for unpaid parking tickets? Dude how many parking tickets did you get?!?
-New character in the office: Ty. Hes Annas dad. And my boss? Why is my bosss kid calling me?
-Tyler asks me to pick him up a couple of coaxial sockets. Mm hm mm hm yes of course I know what that is, no further explanation needed.
-Ty says it would do me no good to call Anna back because shes never home. Yeah well she was at one point if her voicemail is any indication.

sergiocornaga posted...

Interestingly, I got this game and the joke has been changed to:
-What do you call a meeting between two deodorants? Spraydate!
Maybe someone found the first version offensive? As far as bad jokes go, I think this revision has actually improved it by adding a element of surrealism. However, it fails to account for roll-on deodorant, so hopefully a third update is forthcoming.

I've picked up a few games in the sale, and while I have yet to go through everything, I will say that Legend of Etad is my favourite so far and I would recommend checking it out. I'm judging based on a smaller sample size than you've experienced, though.

Also, HANA really is quite terrible, huh? I quit out to try something else and when I went back to it, none of my progress had been saved. Do you know if it saves at any point?

Oh interesting. I wonder if that game has multiple "short" jokes. I played through a couple of times and got the lispers joke each time, so you could also be right and they changed it later on.

Thanks for the heads up! I'm planning to download a whole bunch that are on sale at the moment, and Etad has been on my shortlist for sometime as one that looked pretty good. I'm glad you found something fun already!

AND I TRIED TO WARN YOU. As far as I know, no, but I'm not sure. I got a message at one point saying it was saving, but when I tried to go back in my progress was gone and I had to start over. I was curious if it saved at the "halfway" point, but there was zero chance I was going back in there if it didn't so I played through to the end out of fear. I don't actually know...

How dare you sir.

I love how ever my screen of that game is an unintentional Wheres Waldo search puzzle.

Oh, here's some pictures if you're curious what it looks like!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/84552fbe.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/58d486f8.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b21b0036.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/08dc4c93.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/ea38b533.png

Game #36 Complete! Life's 2 Short: Unhooked

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "I vaguely remember playing this, I think."

Final Thoughts: Bad news everyone! I played this one on a flight for a work trip, so you don't get a play-by-play like all the other games. Even worse news, this one is pretty unremarkable as far as indie adventure games go so I have only vague hazy memories of my time with it. I played it like a week ago now and I'm already missing chunks of some of the middle bits. The good news is it lasted the whole flight, which I never would've guessed after playing the first game.

On the positive side, this does feel like a whole game. Like, it's the length where I feel like you can sell this by itself and I'm not confused. It's not a long adventure game but there's at least a bit of meat on the bones here instead of a pile of just bones hiding a smaller pile of bones underneath it. In the first game, all the puzzles sort of solved themselves. There were like six things you could interact with in the game and item usage was automatic so if you didn't know what to do, it would take like eight seconds to try every single permutation in the game. I mentioned at the time, but it felt like something on Newgrounds someone made to make sure they could make an actual game. Sort of a test "do I understand how to make an adventure game" thing you throw together and it last for twenty minutes and its functional, so you're happy.

This one at least has puzzles. Things you need to figure out. More than six rooms. I know, imagine my surprise. You need to help out the four wives of Captain Toomanywives or whatever his name is, and each one of them has something specific you need to do, which requires several multistep puzzles to be completed along the way. I have no idea why this ghost is solving pirate relationship problems, but I guess after you solved the vampire's relationship problems last game you've started developing a reputation. Your goal becomes to help these poor women all free themselves from this toxic relationship, which is at least a better goal than forcing four women back into a toxic relationship with a two peg legged pirate.

But each one of these women have a thing you to do. One needs all the pirates to join their gym. One needs the beach cleaned up and the sea life to return. One...want's to open a cat cafe. They can't all be winners, okay? But then each pirate has some puzzle you need to solve to get them willing to show up, and sometimes getting the thing that helps the pirate has its own puzzle attached to it. Look, I know I'm just explaining "adventure games" to you guys, but the first game didn't have that! This is a game! An honest to goodness adventure game. WE DID IT EVERYONE.

...it also isn't a very good one.

The thing that comes to mind first when describing this is clunky. The interface is clunky, the puzzle design is clunky, the dialogue trees are clunky. Everything in clunky. There were multiple times where I wasn't even sure if I solved a puzzle or not. One of the characters here wants a beach cleaned and after picking up a couple of things their dialogue tree for the cleaning option was like "wow it looks great - great job!" But I wasn't done yet. I wasn't close to done. Another character shows up at one point to tell me I had gotten all the pirates to the gym, but the actual woman at the gym was still asking me to spread her fliers. So...which is it? AM I DONE OR NOT?

Here's my least favorite puzzle in the game: a pirate lost his boot and won't go to them gym until you find it for him. He tell me he lost it near the castle and lo and behold, there's a spot to fish right by the castle. Me, being well versed in hacky adventure game jokes, knew I could fish up a boot from this spot. I knew it immediately. And I tried to do it, no exaggeration, twenty times. And I kept getting fish that I would throw back. So I was like "well, maybe not?" But then I couldn't find the boot. So I came back a couple of other times. Still no boot. And then on my fourth attempt a couple of tries in, I got the boot. Doing the same thing I had done a hundred other times. There was no logic behind it, at least as far as I could tell. I didn't replace the bait with boot attracter spray or have to put super glue at the end or the rod or something. Was there some sort of story trigger? I have no clue but if there was it wasn't a logical one. And there wasn't even a reason for it because I had been able to fish for a while now and I knew instinctively that I was going to be getting a boot. Apparently I just had to try it a couple dozen times and finally the game was like "oh ok you've suffered enough" and gave it to me.

There's a lot of stuff like this here, where it has that big amateur energy to it. And the creator here is an amateur! So, fine. I get it. But it is as I said before clunky. The dialogue trees don't ever go away, so I would talk to someone and come back and still have like ten options I could talk to them about. And the dialogue in this game is very bland so I wouldn't always remember what they had to say. I kept repeating dialogues because I couldn't remember if I had the conversation or not and then the option wouldn't go away, so I was always like "...eh, maybe I forgot?" It is this sort of annoying system and something that was probably pretty easy to fix.

The biggest problem for me though is it just doesn't have the charm of the first game. There has to be at least like ten times the amount of writing here, but I still think the original game was probably better as a story. This all just felt generic and bland and I honestly was having a hard time caring about what was going on. Maybe I'm just being easier on the first game because it was so short that I wasn't really expecting these well developed character, but here there is more than enough time for them to breathe and yet I could not possibly care less about the cast of nobodies I'm forced to interact with.

So overall, it's a better game but not necessarily a "better" game. I remember that first game making me smile a couple of times and just didn't get that here. The game is longer and more substantial, but also clunky and charmless and just not really all that fun to play. We're heading in the right direction, at least, but just barely.

Should You Play It? Nah. Maybe if you're super into the indie adventure game scene, but I've played a lot of better ones than this and this is pretty forgettable overall

Final Score: 4. We get a couple of steps forward here and also a couple of steps back, and the final result is basically the same as the first game. I'd give the edge to this one ever so slightly because it feels like a full game even if it is much messier this time around.

Games Completed: 36/151

Game Rankings:
36) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
35) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
34) Boogie Loops
33) Hidey Spot
32) Bub-O Collect
31) The Lushes Land
30) Nightingale
29) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
28) Recommendation Dog!!
27) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
26) Whitewater Wipeout
25) The Botanist
24) Snak
23) DYG
22) Lost Your Marbles
21) Grand Tour Legends
20) Life's Too Short
19) Life's 2 Short: Unhooked
18) Demon Quest '85
17) The Fall of Elena Temple
16) Flipper Lifter
15) Questy Chess
14) Slitherlink PD
13) The Keyper
12) SKEW
11) Star Sled
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Hey that's super cool! Now there are 70,000 and 1 of us! It is definitely a fun little thing and I've gotten my money's worth at the very least. Let me know if you find anything cool I've missed!

And hey, feel free to rank along if you'd like.

Game #35 Complete! Star Sled

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Dangerously functional!"

Final Thoughts: Star Sled really feels like the quintessential Season 1 Playdate experience. It uses the crank fairly well and doesn't do anything egregiously wrong, but it also doesn't feel like they fully finished it. I played it like a week ago, and while I certainly didn't mind it while I was playing it, I'm looking back now with only vague memories of the experience.

It is fun. Or sort of fun. I didn't mind it is my overall review. "I didn't mind it." Is that the kind of glowing recommendation you're looking for? It uses the crank fairly well and I thought the gameplay was pretty ok. I've said this in like half of these games now, but I like using the crank. If you're putting together a basic game for the Playdate, make sure you get some crank controls in there because I'll rank it higher. You get bonus points for doing those tight loops around the stars, and that when the crank controls really shine the best. I like that sort of precision you get from the crank, and it feels natural and fun. Crank controls still good, would recommend.

But like a lot of the "mid" tier of Playdate games, this doesn't feel finished all the way. It is an hourish long, but that's not even my biggest problem with things. I mean, sure, yes I would ideally like more than an hour of gameplay but if it is really well polished then whatever. But this feels a bit like they didn't think everything through. There were a bunch of times I'd play a level and think "oh that would've been better if this part was longer or if they did this with the gates or made the mechanic like this." I shouldn't be able to think of that. I'm a dumb person. I shouldn't be able to think of specific things your game is missing on account of being a dumb person. It means it is an obvious omission, and this game has a lot of them.

Here's an example: make the points mean something. Why are they tracking points? There is no leaderboard, no ranking system, no minimum point score you need to achieve to clear a level or block. You get bonus points for beating a level quickly or for doing tight loops instead of long winding ones, but who cares? Why make things harder on yourself? The game doesn't care. "Oh high score? Uh ok cool I guess." Welcome to Star Sled, where the points don't matter and everything is made up. I feel like Drew Carey is just slinging a handful of points my way every now and then, and I don't know why I'm even taking advantage of some of the mechanics here because the game doesn't seem to care if I use them or not.

Level design is where the game struggles the most. You have a lot of levels lacking creativity here, and a lot of ones that blend into each other. The core mechanic is fine, but they didn't manage to put in levels that really show it off in the best way. There are a handful of fun ones here that I liked, but for the most part I can't remember what I played through.

So, overall, it works. I like the controls. I like the idea. I just wasn't crazy about what they did with those two things. It is functional and doesn't bother you going down. We got the unflavored oatmeal of the video game world here but hey at least it isn't alarm clocks, I guess.

Should You Play It? Sure. If you had to pay for it I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but it is in that nice safe space of "free with the purchase of the console". The controls are pretty fun and you aren't going to mind the hour you spend with it.

Final Score: 5. I don't hate it. I don't love it. It's my second cousin I see alternate Christmases. It is fun enough but not quite fun enough, if that makes sense.

Games Completed: 35/151

Game Rankings:
35) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
34) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
33) Boogie Loops
32) Hidey Spot
31) Bub-O Collect
30) The Lushes Land
29) Nightingale
28) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
27) Recommendation Dog!!
26) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
25) Whitewater Wipeout
24) The Botanist
23) Snak
22) DYG
21) Lost Your Marbles
20) Grand Tour Legends
19) Life's Too Short
18) Demon Quest '85
17) The Fall of Elena Temple
16) Flipper Lifter
15) Questy Chess
14) Slitherlink PD
13) The Keyper
12) SKEW
11) Star Sled
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Currently Playing: Star Sled

What Is It? Strangely enough, it isn't just a collection of a handful of clock types. Apparently, such magic is possible.

Gameplay Overview: So you're this little star thing and you leave this little line behind you wherever you go. You want to use this to make a circle around these other little start things. Each level has something like five to twenty of those star things, and you need to circle them all to finish the level. Things get more complicated the further you go on (you can circle multiple at once, certain enemies attack you if you accidentally circle them, you gain the ability to teleport, etc) but the basic goal is always the same.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/star-sled/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1ed0519d.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a6df92ff.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0f6bdc51.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/61bcfb44.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/85f7e343.png

Thoughts:
-Time for Star Sled. Another Season 1 game! Which is usually a good sign so aw yeah.
-This actually has instructions which is bizarre since I got the feeling developers for this system were in agreement to never put those in their game for some reason.
-The gist is that I need to encircle each spark in a level to complete it. I can earn more points if I go back and play but I dont know what that is for other than bragging rights.
-I change difficulty to HARDER. I am no chump.
-Oh this has a story?
-Since the DAWN OF THE GALAXY sparks are the primary energy source. The dreaded Thion Empire has flooded space with sentries to gather these sparks for their battle stations. I need to capture sparks and destroy battle stations. Got it. The no good Thion Empire doesnt stand a chance!
-Ok so the intro missions are pretty easy, You just move your ship around and make a circle around the sparks to capture them. Dont crash into the sparks though, I found out the hard way.
-You get extra points for making tight circles instead of going all crazy big with things.
-The third stage adds enemies which uh are entirely stationary and dont hurt you as long as you dont crash into them. Ah yes, my dreaded enemy: corporeal objects.
-Mission B is a little harder in that it adds enemies that actually move. Truly a devious strategy: not staying perfectly still.
-You also get a boost in this mission group, which makes things a bit more interesting.
-I forgot to mention you get score based on how quickly you finish a level too, so there is incentive to speed up as much as possible.
-Well incentive. I still dont know if score does anything.
-The boss of this area is a battlestation which is again perfectly still. I just need to be careful not to run into any of the lightning gates.
-Things do pick up a bit here. I get through blocks A thorugh E without too much trouble but it definitely gets more complex than sitting enemies glare at you and beg you to crash into them.
-You have enemies that track you, and then if you close an enemy in a loop it teleports to you and kills you instantly. And you have certain levels where you can catch multiple sparks at once for bonus points, and then other levels where if you capture more than one you die. You have sparks that move and lightning gates, and eventually you can even teleport to another part of your loop if youre aiming at it. Theres stuff here.
-Lightning gates might not have been the best idea because the visual indication of oh hey these are lighting up in a second is almost imperceptible on the Playdate screen.
-Well two more mission packs left. I was going to take a break but might as well power through!
-Oh, wait. Theres more to this game! There are hidden anomalies. I didnt notice them because I wasnt sitting direction under three suns all at once, but if you look carefully in some spots you see the screen wavering. Loop around these anomalies to open up a warp hole, which takes you to a secret level.
-The game is nice enough to tell you what levels have hidden anomalies you missed, which helps because I was looking back through old levels and noticed that notification. Otherwise I wouldve had no clue they were even here.
-The second hidden level is Sparks everywhere and BOY ARE THEY RIGHT
-Theres like a dozen moving around randomly with enemies also floating around and I fail something like 57 times because Im an idiot and keep going for the meaningless extra point bonus for making a small circle.
-I will say though I do like the little bit of challenge here. I like how you have to completely restart the level if you fail and you get one life to pull it off.
-In one of the levels I missed a hidden anomaly, I literally flew right over to where it was because theres this weird branching path for no reason in a battlestation. I just couldnt see it because of the bad lighting. CURSE YOU PLAYDATE AND YOUR NO BACKLIT SCREEN!
-Haha level ???-3, the one right after the last one, is one of the easiest levels in the game and there arent even any moving enemies. Hey, difficulty curve, whered you go?
-Something that wouldve been fun here is to give some sort of point total you need to surpass to beat the level. It would make things a bit more fun if you actually had to get these bonus points or SUFFER.
-?-4 is fun again, and you have a stationary sentry in the middle of all these stationary sparks, and you need to make these big loops you teleport through while avoiding accidentally capturing the sentry in the middle.
-Ooh final upgrade is a warp smash that lets me smash and destroy sentries if Im pointed at them. TAKE THAT, STATOINARY OBJECTS THAT WERENT BOTHERING ME
-Aw man the smash doesnt work on those enemy ships that chase me. I do accidentally discover that if you loop them they get stunned temporarily. So I got that going for me.
-The penultimate stage has these SUPER FAST jerk ships and Im constantly having to juke them. -My smash attack does NOTHING. Some attack.
-Final stage has a little boss thing which is really just a stationary collection of stars I need to lasso. Nothing too crazy.
-Another game done in a single evening. At least this one wasnt too bad!
-This is another one of the Season 1 games where my overall opinion is almost good but doesnt feel like they finished it.
-Like I am a dumb person who cant make games. If Im playing your game and I go wow they really shouldve added a level like this or made more that built off of this, theres a problem. If I can think of something specific your game couldve added, it is obvious.

Time Played: I think it was in the 60 minute range. So brief, but not as brief as the really insubstantial Playdate games.
High Score: They do keep track of your score each level, but I didn't see any sort of "total" high score. I'm too lazy to add them all up so I'll just say a billion.
Beaten? All levels beaten, including the secret extra ones the game forgets to tell you about.
Grade: A solid 5. Not great. Not bad. I played it and it was fine but I'll forget about it by next week.
Favorite Part So Far: There are a couple of boss levels where you have this quick chase segment at the end where you need to make it out of these winding tunnels. I thought those were fun.

I legitimately wonder what the sales for this is. Like total Playdate sales right now is 70k. How many people in that 70k bought the alarm clock app for $5. Is it just me? Did some alarm go off at Panic and people started running around in a literal panic because someone bought the placeholder game someone put up on the store as a joke?

I'm worried I'm on some sort of list now. Like "PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks" was the most boring concept government scientists could come up with, and they're trying to lure out that rouge accounting robot that escaped from their lab. They're going to kick down my door and go "We knew you couldn't resist a collection of alarm clocks, you're just a stupid robot without an understanding of the human concept of fun." And I'd go "no no I'm a real human that bought the digital alarm clock collection willingly!" But I wouldn't finish the sentence because of how stupid it sounds and just accept my fate.

Fluttershy_Pony posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_King

Not sure if I'm being whooshed here, but there is a clock-themed Batman villain because of course there is.

(Great topic by the way, one of the best in the board's history.)

Thanks!

And of course there is an actual clock themed Batman villain. Should've googled. I like Dr. Ticktock better though tbqh.

Johnbobb posted...

Everything's coming up Boogie Loops

I'm worried Boogie Loops might finish this not in the bottom ten at this rate. There are a lot of questionable looking things in the catalogue that I've been holding off on.

Lord_Bob_Bree posted...

Is it a coincidence that the bottom two titles have a similar format?

WOW. I need to check the catalogue for a CAPS Standard Capitalization game just for scientific reasons at this point. Good catch!

And then, to top it all off, as one final sad, hilarious insult, not all of these clocks even work right. You're supposed to be able to use the crank to scroll through time if you like the idea of a clock but would prefer it if the numbers it showed correspond to nothing. Scrolling through the time is pretty simple on most of these, but there are a couple that just dont work. A lot of these you can just scroll through minute to minute and its all fine. Its incredibly boring and incredibly pointless, but at least functional. But then you have a couple that are apparently pushing the power of the Playdate and start lagging to the point you can even scroll through them. There are multiple ones here where you can't actually scroll because of how bad the lag is, and I think the fantasy themed one was probably the worst at this. I would try to scroll and it would get stuck and then stay stuck and then start drooling, and then awake with a scream and skip 24 minutes ahead. It makes doing the one thing you can do impossible and Im almost impressed the level of sheer incompetence. This game is quite literally, a series of clocks. Thats it. Thats all there is to the game. And it still doesnt work. There is nothing here and that nothing is still broken. How do you break nothing? How? Imagine walking into an empty room and just the essence of emptiness was broken.

Someone looked at a clock and thought for a while and then muttered to themselves I can make this worse and this game was the result. This persons mother was crushed by a clock and now theyre doing everything they can to make sure nobody ever wanted to use a clock again. And it worked. I'm done with time, everyone. This game ruined it for me.

Should You Play It? If I ever tell you that you need to buy a group of fifty clocks, call the police. It's too late for me but at least maybe you'll be able to help the police recover my body.

Final Score: 1. Zero. Negative 12. I don't know how to score this but it is a compilation of clocks that don't work and are hard to read and also they try to make you tell time with a fish body. I think that might be a crime, I'm not sure.

Games Completed: 34/151

Game Rankings:
34) PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks
33) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
32) Boogie Loops
31) Hidey Spot
30) Bub-O Collect
29) The Lushes Land
28) Nightingale
27) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
26) Recommendation Dog!!
25) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
24) Whitewater Wipeout
23) The Botanist
22) Snak
21) DYG
20) Lost Your Marbles
19) Grand Tour Legends
18) Life's Too Short
17) Demon Quest '85
16) The Fall of Elena Temple
15) Flipper Lifter
14) Questy Chess
13) Slitherlink PD
12) The Keyper
11) SKEW
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Game #34 Complete! PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "What time is it? (indiscernible gurgling) time!"

Final Thoughts: The good news for anyone enjoying this is that I'm pot committed now. I can't back off this project after wasting $5 on PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks. This is the ultimate sunk cost fallacy. "Hey I could move on to other projects but then the guy who stole $5 from me for a series of clocks wins." No fucking chance. That asshole is using my five dollars right now to buy torture implements to turn a racoon carcass into a functional clock and I'm personally responsible for that. I can't let that racoon to have died for nothing. I'm finishing this now.

The Playdate has some things that it classifies as apps, so it is worth noting this isnt really trying to be a game. So Im not docking points for that, just as a heads up. Im docking points for everything else. This is something that at least has the decency to advertise what it is exactly in its title. This is a collection of weird alarm clocks and I honestly can't imagine a more depressing collection. Imagine walking into a room and finding an alarm clock collection. You would think you just wandered into a serial killer's house.

Each clock has instructions on how to use it, which is already a bad sign. Here is a line from the description of one of these clocks: Low-state clocks are my experiment in communicating time using far fewer states while still being useful and easy to read. Easy to read. Ok, so the goal here is being useful and easy to read. Now, I am going to post paragraph four of nine of the how the hell to even read this clock instructions from one of these clocks. First off, there are nine paragraphs in the instructions of this easy to use clock. If youre trying to make an easy to use anything, and you get to your ninth paragraph explaining how to use it, just set whatever you were working on doing on fire and start over. There are calculus text books that explain how to do things in less than nine paragraphs and I cant even tell if the easy to use disclaimer up front is supposed to be a hilarious sarcastic joke or not.

The single inner light is used to tell the hour, as is the inner hand of any clock. It indicates the parity of the nearest hour mark: off for even, on for odd. Now you know the time is 10 to odd for example, or half past even. By default the nearest hour is shown. So at 10 to 9 (8:50), the hour light will be on for odd, indicating 9 the closest to where the hour hand would be on an analog clock not off (even) for 8.

Help I'm too stupid to use this clock. I started reading this and realized I was too dumb to tell time. That hasn't happened to me since the first grade. The description of how to use your clock reads like it was written by someone in the midst of a schizophrenic breakdown. This is the kind of note you usually find scrawled in blood in a horror game before someone with a clock sewn to their face emerges from the darkness.

Heres another direct line from a third clock that I did not alter in any way: Knowing the hour parity combined with the circadian oscillator in your hypothalamus is enough to tell you the exact hour. Hey, weird clock app creator, when you started writing the phrase circadian oscillator in your hypothalamus did you get this profound sense of shame as you realized that all those kids that beat you up in high school after they caught you licking a clock were right to hate you? I'm pretty sure that between all the various rambling instructions on how to read these nonsense clocks that this game has the most writing of any Playdate title.

I wish I could tell you the dumbest thing about this. Ive narrowed it down to two but I cant pick. Its Sophies Choice but both of my choices wandered off into the middle of a street and got hit by a bus before I could make my choice. One of the finalists is the fact they took a clock and made it worse. Most of the clocks here are significantly harder to read than a normal clock. There's one where you look at the body of a weird mutated animal thing and each various body part gives you information about the time. What kind of Druid bullshit is this? Imagine looking at a clock and having to consult your notes to see what a fish body means. If you ask someone what time it is and they start muttering about the number of horns on a stag head, you need to run. You're moments away from being turned into an alarm clock yourself.

The other thing is that the resting screen of a Playdate is already a clock. Thats the default option for a Playdate, and it costs zero dollars. When you put your game into rest mode, the thing it shows is a normal, easy to read clock and thats free. It's a clock. IT IS A CLOCK. Already. Youre paying five dollars for a worse version of the thing the system comes with. They made a thing the Playdate didn't need and then made it worse. A lot of these clocks can't even give you the exact time, and they're designed in such a way to tell you what time it is within a five minute window. "Hey do you want to know the time but only sort of?"

There is also an alarm functionality, but, again, why? Who needs or wants to use their Playdate as an alarm clock? Who looked at the Playdate and thought to themselves wow I want to buy this $200 console to use as my alarm clock? Every single person in the entire world has a phone, right now, in their pocket. That phone comes with an alarm clock that is louder and more effective to use than the alarm clock that comes with this $5 app. It is a thing that no one asks for and no one needs and fills a niche that doesnt exist. Clocks are on every digital device, ever, and no one has purchased an alarm clock since 2003.

I genuinely dont get the why. Im confused. Im confused. Why was this made? I thinkI think this mightve been made by a Batman villain. That sounds crazy but it makes the most sense. Like it was made by someone called The Clock Master or Dr. Ticktock or something, and they commit exclusively clock related crimes. GADZOOKS BATMAN ITS DR. TICKTOCK Ho ho ho BATMAN now that Ive flooded Gotham with these idiotic clocks, no one will ever be on time for a meeting again! HYUH HYUH HYUH!!! It feels almost like Im playing an AR game but without the AR game actually attached to it. Like Im looking at this and Im stressing out because I can't find the hidden code that will give me the coordinates of the missing children.

Theres also something borderline devious about calling this PLAYTIME. I get that the full name is PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks but that PLAYTIME up front is almost evil. You cant call your weird alarm clock emporium playtime. Its like telling your kids youre bringing them to AMUSEMENT PARK and they get all excited and then you pull up and its called AMUSEMENT PARK Dentistry and Pet Eradicator. Theres nothing playtime about alarm clocks! You cant use that work to describe this. We have laws to prevent this level of consumer misinformation.

"Hey uh Suprak should I buy this thing"
"Hold on a second let me tell you about all these clocks I'm looking at."

Currently Playing: PLAYTIME Weird Alarm Clocks

What Is It? 50 different clocks for your viewing pleasure

Gameplay Overview: Uh, well you don't really play this. You pick a clock, read a forty six page instruction manual on how to read the clock, and then look at the clock. You can use the crank to rotate time forward or backwards, but it just goes back to the actual time once you stop.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/playtime-weird-alarm-clocks/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d43b86de.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/ea65d872.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b47d0ee6.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e2ef0a10.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9aeeb84b.png

Thoughts:
-Oh no what have I done

Time Played: I want to say thirty minutes but you know what they say: time flies when you're looking at a clock and re-evalutating all your life decisions that brought you to this point.
High Score: 23:59 was the highest score I could get. After that there was some sort of glitch and the whole thing reset. Lame.
Beaten? I don't even know how I could
Grade: A big bold 1. But written out in silly font like 1:00 where the one is a snake and the zeroes are eyeballs looking all around. Just so you know how wacky I am.
Favorite Part So Far: There are a couple of clocks here that don't work and if you try to rotate through time things start lagging and the time jumps all over to seemingly random points. If my Playdate quest was a movie, this would be the low point where I sob over my Playdate after drinking half a bottle of whisky and drunk calling my PS5 to come back to me.

It's a good question and after playing 35 games for it, I think I can pretty definitively say "I don't know".

I think it's a pretty fun little system. The crank is fun to use and there are certain games here that feel like they would not work nearly as well without the crank. The games are, overall, pretty bad though. I'm not sure there are any "great" games for this but there are a whole hell of a lot of bad ones. You don't have big developers making games for this, for the most part. The crowd they were able to draw in is the itch.io crowd so you have to go into it knowing most of these games feel like they should've been bundled with like a hundred other games for two dollars. There is no backlight, which is crazy, and the screen size is pretty small all things considered.

So why do I like it. Honestly, mostly just "vibes". That's a dumb reason to like something but hey its why I've kept playing. I love the idea of a season concept. It was fun getting that little blue light when two more games would get installed. It's cute and sleek and the community around it is kind of fun and I like how it is showcasing all these small indie developers (even if most of them aren't doing anything all that impressive with the showcase).

It's charming and weird and hey, sometimes that's enough. You just have to go in knowing what you're going to get for the $200 price tag.

Game #33 Complete! Life's Too Short

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Life's too short to be wasting time playing games over 28 minutes!"

Final Thoughts: This is such a weird one to rank because of how short it is. I think I mentioned this in my write up, but what this really reminded me of is one of those old Newgrounds adventure games you'd play like in 2005 that was someone's first attempt to make a game. The proper way to play this is one in a series of 28 other 10 minutes adventure games you're only playing because you don't want to do your math homework.

There is just a smidge of charm here, just this little bit of personality that made this more playable to me than some of the other nothing adventure games for the Playdate. I smiled a couple of times just because the game was kind of cute. That's something. Right? It might not be a great game but there's some personality here and that actually gets this somewhere. I wasn't annoyed while I was playing it like Lost Your Marbles, which is a more substantial adventure game but also a worse written one. Sometimes it's best to say less if you don't really know what you're doing.

I definitely didn't hate this, but I'm not sure you can hate a game this short. I don't hate people as I walk past them on the street and I don't angrily shake my fist at houses of people I'm driving past, and that's because I don't know them. It's the same here. You start the game, stretch a bit, take your shoes off, and the game shoves you out the front door and tells you that you got to get out of there before their husband gets back. Playdate is having me reconsider something I was always a firm believer of, and that is that there is no "too short" for a game. I always thought games can't be too short if they manage to pull off something in their runtime but it turns out I was wrong. Twenty four minutes is too short. You can't do anything in twenty four minutes. Think about every great adventure game you've played. Were any of them twenty four minutes?

I think it sticks out in an adventure game like this because the fun of this genre is getting this world with puzzles and not knowing what to do at first. You want to have to think for a minute. You can't do that in a game this small. Are you stuck? Well, did you check the five items you can check? No? Go check those five. One of them will do something. There's not a good puzzle here, and that's kind of because this game is too small in scope to have a good puzzle.

Still, not the worst. Not the worst! That's something, right? It was this guy's first game, so I feel bad being hard about it because hey he did something. He made something and it works and it is a little cute. That's something! He should be proud of that. The little ending segment where he's thanking people that taught him how to even do this is a fun little way to end things. It is a very good first attempt. It is, however, not a good game.

Should You Play It? Mmmmmmm...eh. You don't need to. So, I mean, good news is its $2 and I don't think it is necessarily a waste of $2. But I don't you'll miss out on anything by skipping this.

Final Score: 4. By the very skin of its teeth. It isn't as good as Demon Quest '85 mostly because that had a bit more meat to it which is weird to say. I'll slot it just above Grand Tour Legends though.

Games Completed: 33/151

Game Rankings:
33) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
32) Boogie Loops
31) Hidey Spot
30) Bub-O Collect
29) The Lushes Land
28) Nightingale
27) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
26) Recommendation Dog!!
25) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
24) Whitewater Wipeout
23) The Botanist
22) Snak
21) DYG
20) Lost Your Marbles
19) Grand Tour Legends
18) Life's Too Short
17) Demon Quest '85
16) The Fall of Elena Temple
15) Flipper Lifter
14) Questy Chess
13) Slitherlink PD
12) The Keyper
11) SKEW
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Currently Playing: Life's Too Short

What Is It? 30 minute adventure game where you are a little spooky ghost and you need to get two vampires to stop fighting

Gameplay Overview: Have you played a short adventure game before? Like maybe on Newgrounds back in the day? One of those super simple adventure games someone made during their first attempt at game design and were just happy to get something out there? This is one of those.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/lifes-too-short/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a4512171.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a305500b.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d5d40911.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4c80ede2.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8fa98419.png

Thoughts:
-So there are actually THREE Lifes Too Short games. The flagship franchise of the Playdate!
-Looking at the pictures, this looks like another very simple adventure game. Lets see if it can beat out the last very simple adventure game I played.
-A little ghost answers a mysterious call You mean an ADORABLE ghost. He is little and pretty cute for being like two pixels.
-Now you arrive at a spooky mansionto help mend a broken home Not how I thought that sentence was going to end, I got to be honest.
-A little Frankenstein's creature thing greets me at the door and asks for my help getting the two of them to stop fighting. Theyve both locked themselves in their coffins so Im guessing the two I need to bring back together are VAMPIRES. Spooky.
-Frankenstein butler tells me there is a colorful cast of characters here willing to help. ILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT.
-Im dot e body eee dought n ny eeth! Ok gotta find teeth for the bear rug. Got it.
-Damn. There are spiders in the kitchen that the ghost is afraid of. I guess even ghosts are afraid of creepy crawlies.
-The library room has a suit of armor with five gem holes in the armor. I wonder what I can put in there?
-So many locked doors in this mansion. Hopefully this ghost has a keyring.
-The cupboard is locked too??!? These vampires are not a very trusting couple.
-Theres either a witch outside of a window or a poster of a witch thats coughing. I thought it was a poster, but Ive never met a poster with congestion issues.
-It clearly wants a cough drop but all Ive found so far is one gem on the bookshelves. Strangely that isnt fixing her cough.
-I do find one of the vampires. Hes mad his vampire wife is nagging him to clean the kitchen and feed the dog. Those are crazy simple chores, dude. Tell me where your dog is and Ill feed it.
-Also hey Im a ghost why do I need to use doorknobs? Can't I just phase through doors? These locked doors should be the least of my concerns.
-The bathroom has a bunch of stuff in it! A monster in the bathtub! Cough medicine in the medicine cabinet! Something gross in the toilet! Typical bathroom stuff, I guess.
-The monster thing wants me to catch it ten flying rodents with a net. Its hungry and luckily doesnt want to eat a ghost. Phew.
-I give the witch her cough medicine and she hands over her broom. Thanks? Would you happen to have four other gems instead?
-I broom the hell out of those jerk ass spiders. Never stood a chance. NOW WHOS SCARY?
-This kitchen is a gold mine! I find a blender, a cleaning rag, milk, and cheese. Trying to blend the milk and cheese into an ultimate weapon against the lactose intolerant doesnt work, sadly.
-The cheese catches a mouse, which I try to feed to the monster. Sorry, I know Im ruthlessly murdering a mouse here but the dude vampire is a big old baby who doesnt want to clean the kitchen. You understand, I'm sure.
-The monster doesnt want the mouse. Damn. Now what am I going to do with a mouse?
-I try to give the mouse to the bear rug. It doesnt work, but I get another line of dialogue and from this one I can figure out theres something stuck in his teeth, not that hes missing teeth. What a dummy I am.
-I find the kitchen now that I have a key. It is indeed a mess. I want to go yell at the vampire again to get off his ass and do something, but that isnt an option so I use the dishrag to clean up all theblood stains? Something gross, Im sure.
-Well I clean up the table and a door in back opens. That never happens when I clean my kitchen.
-Ah okay so back here is a dog which chases me back into the dining room right away. Yknow, as a ghost, I am kinda a baby about corporeal things.
-The knife I grab from the table lets me pry out a key from the bear rug mouth. Silly bear rug. Keys are not for eating! Not sure why I couldnt just grab this but whatever!
-OH WHAT THE HELL
-I use the mouse in the blender just to expirement and it works! I make a blood smoothie. Poor mouse
-You know, all this mouseicide couldve been avoided if the vampire just cleaned the damn kitchen himself.
-The vampire doesnt even want the mouse smoothie! He says hes vegan
-I killed a mouse for nothing. II was the real monster all along!
-I use the small key to open up the closet in one of the rooms only to findskeletons! Literal skeletons in the closet! get it? I thought it was cute.
-They do a fake BADUMTISH at their stupid skeleton jokes too. Hes my new favorite character, just above talking bear rug and asshole vampire.
-So the funny bone from the skeleton manages to distract the dog so I can go into his doghouse and collect ten bats. THIS is what I need to feed to the monster. I feel less bad than the mouse, though, since these things are definitely rabid. Im basically a hero.
-I go into the greenhouse and pick up the only tomato inside. The game calls me a monster for that. Game, we crossed that bridge one mouse smoothie ago.
-Okay, magpie distracted with the fork (duh) and gem got. I feel like at this point Im just going to give a bunch of stuff to a bunch of people and win.
-Yep, called it! Give bats to the guy, put tomato in the blender, use gems on the knight, and then give girl vampire who was behind the knight the mouse smoothie and the whiny dude vampire the tomato cocktail. And thats it!
-Cute little ending where they thank everyone. THE END
-Ill give it points for being cute, at least! It is one of these incredibly simple adventure game youd find on Newgrounds circa 2003 though that lasts roughly 30 minutes (if that!).
-Well uh now what am I going to do for the rest of the night? Read? Like a nerd? (Yes, I am going to read)

Time Played: I think 30 minutes but I'm sure it was closer to like 24 and I'm just rounding up.
High Score: Ten bats caught. One mouse smoothie-fied.
Beaten? Yes
Grade: Maybe a four? Like a low four. It is not hugely impressive but it has just enough charm and personality that I wouldn't say its straight up bad and is more meh. But it's borderline so I dunno. Gotta mull it over.
Favorite Part So Far: The skeletons in the closet! Skeleton in the closet nominated for Playdate character of the year whatever year this came out, please.

Game #32 Complete! Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "You'll be hearing from our lawyer! Seriously though this is a cease and desist letter please stop what you're doing."

Final Thoughts: Y'know, I've played a lot of derivative games in my time, but I'm not sure I've ever played a game where that was the entire point. Like if you called this game derivative to the creator, they'd burst out into tears and thank you for the compliment. There are inspirations and there are homages, and then there is this, which is what happens when you try and cram a game into a Xerox machine. This is the equivalent of career day at school and one kid is like "I want to be a lawyer" and then the next kid is like "I was to be Peter F. Geracci, Attorney at Law" and then the teacher is like "oh you want to be a lawyer too?" and the kid is like "no, not really - I specifically want to be Peter F. Geracci. I want to work in his office and marry his wife and have people call me Peter F. Geracci."

I would be less hard on this game if I feel like it tried, at all, to have its own identity. This feels like a fan game made by someone who loves the source material and hates creativity. You know how the Sonic fandom in the late 2000s had those sites where they'd all make their own OC Sonic characters and write fanfiction with them interacting with the actual Sonic characters? If the creator of this game was on that site, their OC would've been called "Also Sonic the Hedgehog". The judge in this game is a sea cow, but he's also just the judge from Phoenix Wright, again. Trickle is Phoenix in everything but name. The prosecutor who's name I forget because she wasn't important is Walmart brand Miles Edgeworth. They even have that childhood history which isn't even really explained or dug into and seems to have been included for the sole reason that the creator here was afraid if they did anything different from Phoenix Wright then goblins would show up and steal all their socks.

It has to be intentional. The purpose of this has to have been "let me just do Phoenix Wright, again, but with a mermaid." Seanta is this poor innocent guy who is too trusting and also very passionate and will blurt out things that make him seem potential guilty which is just Larry Butz. Rizzle is this seemingly silly busty ditz who charms the judge with her sex appeal but also gets crazy mad and says things that are way too intense and its just April May. Every single character in this game has a close direct parallel to someone in Phoenix Wright other than Lox, I think, and shockingly Lox is the only character I kind of liked because I wasn't spending his screen time contemplating copyright law.

There's the hold it and objection animations. There's the set up where this is Trickle's first case and boy is she earnest and excited and a little scared. You have the same perspective in the courtroom segments, with the same framing of the characters and the same way NOT GUILTY is delivered in the end. There are multiple lines here that I am still not convinced didn't get lifted entirely from one of the Phoenix Wright games. I don't mind a game inspired by Phoenix Wright, and in fact I was interested in playing one. But this is just Almost Exactly Phoenix Wright, Again, But Worse! I get that this is a copycat industry and you have games that spawn a whole series of pretenders, but not this close. Not just the exact same thing, again. Metroidvania games draw inspiration from the originals, but you don't have one where Smaus Aaran is fighting Father Brain on the planet Shebes.

I'm also not even sure what the hell is going on with the premise here.

"Hey, I want to make a Phoenix Wright game but with mermaids."
"Oh, so everyone's mermaids?"
"No, just a couple of the characters. Everyone else is going to be elves because it is Christmas themed."
"Oh...ok, so this is all underwater?"
"No, not even close. In fact, it is going to be at the North Pole for most of the game and I'm going to directly reference the fact they are above the ice multiple times."
"Oh... but didn't you say they'd be mermaids?"
"Yes, but that isn't going to play a role, at all. Her tail can transform into legs and she's going to walk around with all the mer-elves and Seanta."
"So the mer-elves and Seanta are underwater creatures?"
"No, that's the beauty of it all. They're in no way different than normal elves or normal Santa."
"So what makes them mer-elves?"
"That part is going to be unclear."
"Wait, is your head bleeding?"
"Oh, severely. I was kicked by a donkey right before I started brainstorming ideas for this game. Now, let me tell you my ideas for how I'm going to introduce some key plot points that I'm deliberately going to avoid resolving until the sequel that's never going to happen."

I know maybe it is dumb to criticize a game about a mermaid lawyer for logical consistency, but why the hell do we have a mermaid lawyer that has nothing to do with mermaid-ing? I can't wait for their follow up about the magical bird people of Cloudtopia and their adventure navigating the NYC subway system.

The gameplay is also bad. It works making something this simple if it is an introductory segment, but here the whole game is the introduction. It is like if you played Phoenix Wright 1-1 and the credits started rolling. It's missing the whole "turnabout" aspect that sort of defines Phoenix Wright games. Who did it? Well the person who shows up and loudly announces their motive the second you meet them. How did they do it? Well, uh, they just kind of walked over there and did it. You don't need Phoenix Wright to crack this case. Get Steve from Blue's Clues. He wouldn't even need the whole three pawprints to solve this one. Blue would place the first one and Steve would go "oh ok you know what - we can end this episode now".

Maybe I'm being too hard on a game made by one person but I just didn't enjoy this, at all. Trying to make an exact duplicate of a great thing is just a terrible idea because you're just inviting comparisons to the very good thing you aren't. You can absolutely make a fun lawyer game, but you can't just use all the same characters and same tropes and same style and same gags and have the one unique thing about it be they're mermaids but maybe not who knows. It isn't fun or clever and I just felt like I should go play Phoenix Wright, with no mermaids involved.

Should You Play It? No. Why would you? This is just a game you can play but worse in every way. "Hey I want to play Phoenix Wright but only if it's bad." Have you ever said this? Why? Were you being sarcastic? I'm afraid someone heard you and took it seriously and this is all your fault.

Final Score: 3. I honestly kind of want to go lower out of pure spite but it wasn't that bad. I can't in good conscience rank it below Recommendation Dog!! because as this at least didn't double as a sleep aid.

Games Completed: 32/151. One more checked off. 9 more added to the backlog. Progress?

Game Rankings:
32) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
31) Boogie Loops
30) Hidey Spot
29) Bub-O Collect
28) The Lushes Land
27) Nightingale
26) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
25) Recommendation Dog!!
24) Trickle Greenweed, Mermaid At Law
23) Whitewater Wipeout
22) The Botanist
21) Snak
20) DYG
19) Lost Your Marbles
18) Grand Tour Legends
17) Demon Quest '85
16) The Fall of Elena Temple
15) Flipper Lifter
14) Questy Chess
13) Slitherlink PD
12) The Keyper
11) SKEW
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Kenri posted...

christmers

It was right in my grasp, and I let it slip away!

Lord_Bob_Bree posted...

Man, that whole game seems like it should just be an intro case.

I mean, it was. I just don't have any faith there is any other game coming at this point. Can't say I imagine Trickle Greenweed being the kind of game they keep coming back to.

Although I dug around a little and apparently the inspiration for this was a series of kids books staring a mermaid that does a different job each book. No clue if that means we'd get a case two or if the next game is going to be an accounting simulator.

TotallyNotMI posted...

I always feel whiplash because your writeups are a grade of 10 so then when i get to you scoring a game so low it shocks me!

Yeah, that's probably fair haha. It might be better if I do grades or something because a 3/10 to me is just "bad" but not necessarily egregiously so. I don't always hate every bad game that I play. I did kinda dislike this one though!

-He looks like Dobby being forced to celebrate mer-Christmas.
-Sparky: Spontaneous defolicalisation. It can happen to a mer-elf in times of extreme stress. Thats why he needs to join Hair Club For Mer-Evles.
-Lox breaks down and apologizes and were about to get the trial dismissed but RIZZLE ROUGHRIDER shows up.
-Wait her last name is Roughrider? Thats a weird last name for an elf. Sorry. Mer-elf.
-So wait is Rizzle really the culprit then? Is the game ending already?
-Rizzle: When I saw this awful defense lawyer, with her simply dreadful hair, trying to let Seanta get away scot free, I just had to step in. First off, rude. Second off, WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.
-Rizzle says she was there and saw Seanta come back just before the explosion. Wow. Bold move putting yourself at the scene of the crime.
-Rizzle was the one who gave Lox the cocoa, which always makes him fall asleep. OH MY GOD. SHE ADMIT IT!
-Rizzle says she didnt have any cocoa herself because shes careful what she drinks around men.
-You know what boys are like. Id hate to wake up and find one of them had done something awful to me while I was sleeping ERRRRR
-RIzzle: like draw on my face with a pen! Ah. Ok.
-Couple of problems with Rizzles testimony comes out. First, if she was there during the explosion, Lox wouldve seen her. Second, Sparky was the first one on the scene and he didnt see Rizzle there. Hey Rizzle, this was a bad lie and you should feel bad.
-Rizzle now changes her testimony that she went down to the warehouse to look and heard an ominoius ticking, so she jumped out of the way just before the explosion. Wow. Placing yourself even closer to the scene of the crime. Bold move, lets see how it pays off.
-I can now present evidence, and I show her the clock when she talks about the clock. Yep. Great lawyering here.
-She talks about how that clock is a toy one they built by the thousands and I TURNABOUT her and ask why then she assumed it was a bomb and jumped for cover if theyre that common.
-ANOTHER testimony revision. This time she claims she followed Seanta to the warehouse and saw him place a clock, which is why she was so concerned.
-I get stuck on this last bit. The first thing I try is showing Santa when she talks about planting the bomb since he had said his hands are too big and he cant handle electronics earlier. That did nothing. After some experimenting, you had to actually show the clock whichdoesnt really disprove anything about what she was saying. It does trigger the dialogue I want though about Santa's hands being too big for electronics, which, again, makes more sense if I presented Santa's picture.
-Yknow, having two pieces of evidence that should work and punishing you for guessing the wrong one is also Phoenix Wrights thing!
-Sparky vouches that Santa cant even work the light switch in his room. Just how big ARE Santas fingers? Santa over here with hulk hands just uselessly mashing a light switch.
-Rizzle: Shut up Sparky, you stupid little nerd! Youre just saying that to side with your new girlfriend here! First off I dont date mer-elves.
-Rizzle accidentally lets slip that she knew about the Giftmaker 5000 because she just cant stop snitching on herself.
-The ending is a little messy and essentially she was like oh no one ever really cared about me so I wanted to destroy Christmas and replace it with a holiday celebrating me and Sparky was all we all cared for you, even now! and things sort of just end happily with Rizzle going back home to her family.
-Hey not to be a downer but WHAT ABOUT THE EXPLOSION AND BOMB THING? Just going to let her go?
-There is some sort of backstory between Trickle and Nettle that comes up again, but it isnt explained. Nettle is basically just like "I KNOW YOU" and runs away. Stay tuned for that sequel, I guess!
-And they all come celebrate Christmas at Trickles office. Even Rizzle, which seems like a bad idea on account of the whole bomb thing, but whatever.
-Shes determined to chase Sparky around with the mistletoe. I feel like mer-elves need a mer-HR department, ASAP.
-Well thats it. It certainly is a thing. It is a mildly amusing concept mostly just for how blatantly it rips off Phoenix Wright. I wouldnt say I hated it but it also isnt what Id consider good. Mostly just a strange concept that doesnt really get the most out of the premise.

Time Played: Roughly 60-90 minutes. Hard to tell with all my diligent note taking, but it felt roughly the length of an intro Phoenix Wright case.
High Score: One guilty mer-elf punished. Or not punished, I guess.
Beaten? Yep
Grade: Probably another 3. It's Phoenix Wright without any of the fun gameplay and like a tenth of the charm. Imagine what a small inexperienced indie developer could do in a month making a PW clone, and you can get a good approximation of what this is.
Favorite Part So Far: Good ol' Lox sleepily muttering about someone stealing "mah biscuits" got a smile out of me, I'll admit.

-Same thing about bringing up the in game menu. Playdate dont you stroke out on me.
-SEANTA! I KNOW HIM! Sort of.
-Seanta is a nightmare to look at. Something about his mouth is offputting and I hate it.
-He confirms that he did NOT blow up the warehouse, which is good, because Sparky looked like he was about to have a stroke if he said otherwise.
-Seanta: Christmas is my reason for being! I bring joy to all the little girls and boys! Except the naughty ones. They can go die for all I care. HO HO HO.
-Trickle: Crystallised kelp! Seanta knows my name?! Not a huge fan of crystalized kelp as an exclamation, I got to be honest.
-Seanta: HO HO HO! Of course! I know everybodys name. I know thats part of the lore but that seems so menacing, Seanta.
-Seanta starts crying about how early people are losing the Christmas spirit these days. PULL IT TOGETHER MAN.
-Sparky: Oh no, hes entering a despair spiral! Ive seen this before! Yeah, one time this happened and he blew up a fucking building, it was nuts!
-Sparky starts yelling things like friends and family to cheer him up, and Trickle starts shouting mashed potatoes and ham. Trickle I think you might just be hungry.
-Seanta doesnt think I can help. The world has stopped believing and now even my beloved mer-elves have lost their faith in me. Im done. Well yeah it sounds bad if you think about it that way. But have you ever thought about MASHED POTATOES?
-You can ask him about failing belief and his eyes turn EVIL while he rants about people becoming jaded and avaricious. Mm hmm. Does that make you mad enough tooh, I dunno, blow up a building?
-Seanta: Take Rizzle for example. She left for Atlantis to get rich! Ive never seen a mer-elf with such a self serving attitude in all my years! Yeah, she totally did it. Case closed, gentlemen.
-Seanta says he only went down to the warehouse to check the locks. There had been a break-in the week before, which Sparky vouches for. Apparently things ARE rough at the North Pole. Crazy hillbilly security elf was right all along.
-The thing that was stolen was the Giftmaker 5000. Stupid elven luddites.
-Oh boy. Seanta is adamant that every kid gets a present and the naughty list is something parents just made up. Ok ok, sorry I made that joke earlier, jeez.
-I tell Seanta we need authorization to get to the warehouse, and he hits us with the ol Slampus Krampus Jiggery Do. Thats what he actually says, not some nonsense I just made up (although I wish I had).
-Behind my ear appearsa shiny new quarter! That was already there but also beyond that is authorization. It is just a picture of Seanta giving a thumbs up with the words Seanta says ok! which is pretty solid as far as authorization goes, honestly.
-We find Lox sleeping on the job. I swear this whole North Pole security thing is a sham.
-Lox: Hmmughzzz..that sea monkey dun stoled ma biscuitszzz Weird I just had the same dream.
-Lox lets us look around and we find a weird toy alarm clock and thats basically it. Im sure that will be the key clue since it is our only clue.
-Some other mean mermaid shows up to tell us we have no chance and she is the prosecution. She knows my name but I dont know hers. Big Mad Men elevator meme energy.
-Her name is Nettle Bittersing. Trickle Greenweed is the superior name, thus superior attorney. Sorry, I dont make the rules. I just follow them.
-Ah. Rizzle hired her. This is super case closed at this point, guys.
-Nettle says she wont be lectured to by one such as me and storms off. You sure you dont know her, Trickle?
-FINALLY. What weve all been waiting for. THE TRIAL.
-Sparky: Miss, IIm freaking out a little bit! Probably shouldnt have taken all that mer-cocaine right before the trial, Sparky.
-Sparky cant calm down so we decide to stow him under the bench. I cant tell if this was a legitimate character decision or if the artist didnt feel like drawing him in the cutaways.
-The judge is a straight up sea cow.
-Like just a sea cow. It is a talking sea cow, but beyond that theres nothing special about it.
-Trickle: What theJudge Sea Cow isan actual sea cow? Same, Trickle. Same.
-Also Trickles hands look like someone tried to draw hands but forgot what hands were and drew gloves instead. Is this part of mermaid lore? Weird lumpy blobs where hands should be?
-Nettle also looks surprised by this sea cow revelation, which is a bit weirder since this isnt her first trial.
-Oh ok. The judge is just what the mer-elves were able to scrounge up. Im not sure this is going to be a legally binding mer-trial, but lets just go with it.
-The sea cow is also SHOCKED Seanta is the one being accused. Do sea cows get presents too? I didnt think so but maybe thats another lie perpetrated by parents.
-Judge Sea Cow: Why not accuse the tooth fairy of selling dental floss? Is the tooth fairy anti-flossing? Hey guys get in here new tooth fairy lore just dropped.
-Nettle corrects the sea cow with some airtight tooth fairy logic. Damn. Shes good.
-Lox is the first one called to the stand, naturally. The judge comments on his beard hair and Lox apologizes but never shaves it on account of his beliefs. Those beliefs? Itll just grow back anyway. Same, Lox. Same.
-Theres an OFFICIAL testimony segment where Lox says he saw Seanta and only Seanta and that there is no other way to the warehouse. Damn. Im cooked!
-Judge Sea Cow is ready to render his verdict but Trickle busts out a HOLD IT Phoenix Wright style.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e37eb3be.png
-I half expected a second HOLD IT where Phoenix Wright shows up to bust Trickle for copywrite infringement but it doesnt happen.
-Judge Sea Cow forgot to allow me to crossexamine. Ill forgive him, on account of him being a sea cow.
-I can press at any of the segments so I do my usual Phoenix Wright thing and just press at all of them because more dialogue is fun.
-I press all of them, and on one and only one I can say it feels incomplete. So I press on it since its the only thing I can do. I am a good lawyer, guys.
-So the bit that is incomplete is that Lox didnt see anyone on the path during the explosion. The missing bit here, Im assuming, is that he saw Seanta go down but not him come back up.
-Nettle pushes again for a verdict and the sea cow agrees so I have to HOLD IT again. Guys, please stop. We can only do so many "HOLD IT"s before we lose all plausible deniability and Nintendo shows up with their lawsuit gun.
-So we get more testimony now, where Lox posits Seanta must have SNEAKED his way past him. Seems legit on account of him being enormous and the only person outside.
-Judge Sea Cow: The defense will please refrain from banging on the bench! I feel like thats another line from the actual games too
-We press him on the whole sneaking past him unseen thing which, again, is the only bit I can get an option to press further on.
-now have three options to pick from for why Lox didnt actually see Seanta. As in Phoenix Wright tradition, I pick the obviously wrong funny ones first because duh Im not boring. Sadly neither are actually funny. Dang.
-The real answer is Lox was asleep, as we saw in the two minutes we interacted with him.
-Trickle: Face it Nettle! His story is as inconsistent as his accent! AHA! I knew his accent was like four different things. Waitthat doesnt prove anything.
-The crux here is that if he fell asleep, someone else couldve walked past after Seanta.
-Loxs beard falls off after I blow apart his testimony and he looks HORRIFYING. I hate it, please reattach your beard.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2eb850e5.png

-Yes I am debating logic in a game that features a mer-elf leave me alone.
-Sparky gets himself into hysterics and faints again. Clearly out of GUILT. Im on to you Sparky McBuildingexploder or whatever your last name was again.
-Sparky: Well, the security guard saw Seanta enter the warehouse and then a few minutes later it exploded. His charred corpse looked super guilty, trust me.
-Couple of other important points: list of people allowed in is very restrictive and only Seanta was around at the time (clearly someone not on the list just snuck in, calling it now) and the security guard didnt see anyone else around at the time (they were distracted and will admit as much on the stand, also calling it).
-Trickle doesnt think Seanta would have motive to do it but Sparky volunteers one immediately (BECAUSE HE DID IT AND IS TRYING TO SHIFT SUSPICION!)
-According to Sparky, belief in Seanta is down. Kids these days have TV and Video Games to entertain them. So the real killer of Christmas wasTHIS GAME! I knew it all along. Take it away, boys.
-Sparky says people are saying that this got to Seanta. Mm hmm. Who is this people? Is peoples name Sparky Kaboom?
-Sparky: They all want such complicated toys! Have you ever tried to make a Playbox 720? Yes kids should want simpler toys! Like a smaller console. Maybe yellow. That has visuals from the early 1980s. Yes, that would be the thing that saves Christmas!
-Also Sparky you just told me kids dont believe in Seanta because they want video games instead of toys. Now video games ARE toys? Wheres my OBJECTION button?
-Sparky says Seanta is researching alternative ways to get presents made to meet demand. Were mer-elf jobs at risk due to automation?!? Is that why you blew up the toys, Sparky Toybreaker?
-Sparky: Seanta needs a defense lawyer. Mer-elves dont really have many trials or anything like that. We dont have mer-courts and instead dole out mer-vigilante justice. Its usually a mer-massacre.
-Apparently the people managed to get a fancy Atlantean prosecutor, so Seanta is screwed. Well, good thing ol Sparky here came to someone who has been on the job for exactly one day. Ill take the case!
-Sparky is a little less than enthused when he finds out this is Trickles first day. Maybe you shouldnt have made your legal decisions based on your agoraphobia, dude. I was too scared to go into the law office with a bunch of people inside of it so I went to one with no people and oh no there are consequences! Yeah duh.
-Also Sparky reveals the trial is tomorrow. So you waited until the very last day to get a lawyer and you picked one with no experience. Almost like you want Seanta to be found guilty, you no good elf!
-Sorry. Mer-elf.
-Apparently Sparky was the one to come because every other mer-elf thinks Seanta is guilty. -Imagine being such a bad boss that all your workers turn on you the second they can. Only one thinks you actually love Christmas, Seanta, and hes probably the one who did it since his name is Sparky OFirestarter.
-Sparky puts a bag over my head not because Im ugly but because he cant let outsiders find the way to the North Pole. Fair. I would immediately put out a Tik Tok if I could.
-Trickle: MFFMFMMFFFFMFMMFF!! And Trickle died asphyxiated by the bag. The end.
-Investigation Day 1! Oh so this is a multi-day affair? Interesting!
-We are on the last of the polar ice, kept safe by Seantas magic after the rest melted. See, mer-elves? You convict Seanta and global warming wins.
-Also hey Seanta maybe use more of your magic to help with the climate and we can figure out the whole toy thing on our own.
-Trickle just casually drops that she can switch from fins to legs. Did you happen to make some sort of deal with a sea-witch, Trickle? Those never work out.
-Theres someone giving a speech or something on a nearby stage, and Sparky excitedly tells me Rizzle is back!
-Rizzle did it. On account of her being the only other named character for now, but she totally did it.
-Rizzle: I have enough Rizzle brand toys that every little boy and girl can have a Rizzle-Razzle Christmas! Oh Rizzle actually totally did do it, didnt she?
-Someone in the crowd asks Rizzle to marry them. I wouldnt, man. Im about to send her to elf jail.
-Sorry. Mer-elf jail.
-Sparky: Did you hear that? Rizzle has a plan to save Christmas! Sparky you idiot. Youre lucky ol Trickle is here to save the day from this charlatan.
-So Rizzle is apparently a WORLD FAMOUS ELF with her own tv show (that Sparky has never seen) and her own line of toys (that look cheaply made). So she sabotaged Christmas to sell her knock-off dolls at a huge profit, Im guessing. CASE CLOSED.
-Sparky bemoans the fact his toymaker 5000 went missing just before the warehouse exploded. Hey Sparky, this wouldve been something great to bring to my attention IMMEDIATELY.
-Trickle: Looks like Rizzle is still giving out her toys to the crowd. She has them eating out of her hands. Sparky: Yeah, shes always had a knack for getting people to see things her way. Something about her just makes people want to do whatever she says. Trickle: (More like two somethings, Ill bet. Ugh.) I really was hoping to avoid the phrase elf tits but here we are.
-There are four locations I can inspect. The guard room is locked down since theres nothing left to guard. Im a bit curious why there was an elf guard in the first place. How bad is crime at the north pole?
-There are also the elf dormitories. Seanta is currently in a jail they made in the old laundry room. It smells like old elf socks. Sorry. Mer-elf socks.
-Theres also the blown up warehouse! This one I can actually go check out so I do.
-???: YOU CANT BE HERE WITHOUT PROPR AUTHORITISATION! NO TRESSPASSIN!Ah, the classic trope of the hillbilly mer-elf strikes again.
-So this angry guy is Lox. Hes the security guard and his face is completely covered by his beard. I look forward to destroying this guys testimony.
-Also Sparky created a thing that goes on the top of this guys hat to show his emotions since his face is always hidden by his beard. Sparky not to poo poo your invention but I feel like maybe you couldve also used the invention of a razor and accomplished the same thing. But cool emoti-hat, I guess.
-What happened? Lox: SEANTA DONE GONE WENT MAD IS WHAT HAPPENED! Alright man jeez can you answer my questions without having an aneurysm, please.
-Lox wont let us inspect the rubble without clearance. Guy. Its rubble. Im not going to turn it into super rubble.
-Lox: II let that rule slide one time and look where it landed us. Ill no let it happn again. I have no clue what accent this is supposed to be at this point, but its wild.
-Lox: I shouldve known! We shouldve know the pressure was weighin on im. I never figured hed burn it all down for the insurance money! Seanta has insurance? Are there mer-insurance agents, too?
-Trickle: Who on earth insures Seantas toy warehouse? Trickle asking the important questions.
-Sparky: Im pretty certain nobody does. Ok Lox I see a small error in your theory.
-Well Lox still wont let us in until we get authority. Who gives authority? Seanta. Lox, once again I am forced to question your logic.
-Ah well, I got to go see Seanta in jail so he can give me clearance to see the spot the guard thinks he blew up. Fine.
-Theres something kinda weird and laggy here. Like I cant quit out on one button push. For every other game, you press the top button and it closes out the game. Here it takes like six times like the game is trying its hardest to ignore you.

I've been playing too many normal, decent games lately. Time to get weird! This is a very long write-up because the whole game is story based so my apologies. I'll do a much shorter summary soon.

Currently Playing: Trickle Greenweed: Mermaid at Law in Christmas Catastrophe

What Is It? Phoenix Wright rip-off where you're a mermaid trying to save Santa from being wrongfully accused of bombing a toy warehouse

Gameplay Overview: I promise you that description is the high point of the game. Have you played Phoenix Wright? This is that if you squint really hard. You have a visual novel part where you go around and inspect stuff and talk to people, then a courtroom segment part where you press witnesses on statements and present contradictory evidence.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/trickle-greenweed/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0ce371c5.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/68576caa.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/60daa113.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/02f9cbd6.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4fb27581.png

Thoughts:
-Alright Im just going to grab this because this is the best title on the Playdate and there isnt a close second. Trickle Greenweed: Mermaid at Law in Christmas Catastrophe, YOURE NEXT
-I can tell from the screenshots and the title card that this is a budget ripoff of Phoenix Wright, but honestly Im kind of down? Especially if it is even halfway decent.
-It opens with a literal OBJECTION flash. Is it easier or harder to sue if the thing youre ripping off is lawyer based, I wonder.
-I can already do chapter select from the menu screen, which seems crazy. Theres only three so Im guessing this is basically like a short Phoenix Wright case.
-Uh theres no way to go back? I clicked on the trial portion just to verify I could and now Im stuck. HELP ME.
-Time to start, for real now.
-Theres a building that just says toys and then it explodes. Im pretty sure this is also what happened to my local Toysrus a couple of years back, too.
-???: Ha ha ha! Its done! Its done! Aw please dont show me who did it right away those are always my least favorite Phoenix Wright cases.
-???: Now Christmas is ruined, forever! This year the Grinch decided he had to take drastic measures to stop Whoville.
-Trickle: My name is Trickle Greenweed, and I have just graduated law from Atlantis U, meaning Im finally a fully fledged mermaid attorney, just in time for Christmas! I am a little confused why mermaid was the option they went with a Christmas themed Phoenix Wright ripoff. Why not elf? Or reindeer? Or something non aquatic, at least.
-Trickle: Im a defense attorney. That means that I go to court and use my knowledge of the law to help protect people. Hold on let me go check a Phoenix Wright walkthrough because Im not 100% positive that dialogue isnt lifted entirely from one of the games.
-Trickle: When someone is being accused of a crime they didnt commit, Ill be there to back them up! And if theyre being accused of a crime they did commit, Ill also be there if they paid my standard retainer fee!
-I now have to move the dpad around to inspect Trickles office and the cursor moves SO SLOW. I miss touchscreen interface already.
-Trickle: This is my official attorneys shell! It is only given to fully qualified attorneys. And also any child who finds one at the beach. Theyre also allowed to practice mermaid law at that point. Its a flaw in our system.
-Im waiting for my first client to show up, and pass out while waiting. Guess there arent a lot of underwater crimes.
-Unknown: Wow, do people really live like this? Its so depressing. Um excuse me Im not sure if you saw but I have a seashell badge so it is definitely NOT depressing.
-Unknown: OH! Oh gosh, Im so sorry! I dont know how I didnt see you there! Considering it is literally just me in a completely empty office, Im not sure either. BUT this seems catty and intentional, you jerk face elf.
-This elfs name is Sparky Blastcap. That sounds less like an elfs name, and more like the name of someone who would blow up a toy building. Number one suspect, hello. Thanks for coming here to turn yourself in.
-Oh, this guys not an elf. Hes a mer-elf. Of course. Now the whole underwater theme makes perfect sense.
-Sparky: We mer-elves all live together at the north pole. Were like one big happy family! Hey not to be rude but Im pretty sure thats also where all the normal elves live. Is it possible you are just a normal elf that likes to swim?
-I then question why the hell hes dressed the way he is. Were going to have a catty off, I guess.
-Trickle: Well, arent you a little bit, um, warm? Were in the tropics and youre wearing a polo neck jumper and a wooly hat with a bobble on it. It all made perfect sense to me until we got to the bobble. This guy must be a south pole mer-elf.
-Also we might or might not be underwater, Im not sure. Sparky please let me know if you start drowning as thatll be a pretty big clue.
-He almost passes out due to heat exhaustion. Or guilt from the arson he committed? Hm? HMMMM?
-Sparky chose me because he was just desperate for a lawyer and is agoraphobic and didnt want to go to downtown Atlantis. Sure, but again, do you not have elf lawyers that are maybe not half a hemisphere away?
-Sparky: So when I saw your tiny little office I was so relieved! It is even smaller than my workshop is! This feels like another burn but Im not sure. IM WATCHING YOU SPARKY.
-Sparky: Seanta has been accused ofMURDER! Thats a great pun and Im now like 50% certain this whole set up was because the author here thought of Seanta first and wanted to work that into a game somehow.
-Trickle: Seanta? As in the jolly old mer-man that gives toys to kids at Christmas? That Seanta? Uh trickle I believe you mean mer-toys to mer-kids at mer-Christmas. Cmon lets stay on theme here.
-Trickle: It would be kind of weird to call your kid Seanta, I guess. Anyone named Sean Ta in shambles right now.
-Also Santa being accused of murder is a pretty good hook for a Christmas Phoenix Wright rip-off, I got to say.
-Er. Sorry. Seanta. My mistake.
-The person Seanta is being accused of murdering? CHRISTMAS ITSELF!
-wait how does that work?
-Sparky here is like yeah mer-elf law doesnt make a lot of sense and a lot of it is metaphorical uh huh. This dumb war on Christmas rhetoric gets taken to extremes some places, huh?
-The warehouse that held all the toys was destroyed and thats why Christmas is considered murdered. Uh huh. Sure. But why not charge Seanta with oh I dunno an act of terrorism/bombing/arson/very real and not metaphorical crimes?

I did eventually get a run of 9k which is good for 68th place. Take that, four people I leapfrogged. I hope you're devastated.

foolm0r0n posted...

Also play your kid the VVVVVV soundtrack

I haven't opened VVVVVV for years out of shame of never being able to get to last a full minute on the super gravitron.

Game #31 Complete! Hyper Meteor

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "You'll never want to play Asteroids again!"

Final Thoughts:
This one was definitely better than I expected going in. I know there are some people who love these, but I just can't get into arcade style point chasers for too long. I'm surprised this game hooked me as long as it did, honestly. Four hours doesn't seem like much but usually I play these sorts of games for like thirty minutes before getting bored. I still think in terms of pure point chasers, Flipper Lifter is the best idea of the Playdate games I've played so far but this one has the benefit of 1) having an online leaderboard and 2) not being broken.

It is actually kind of crazy to me I'm 31 games in now and its taken me this long to get to a point chaser that has a leaderboard, isn't broken, and is at least mildly fun. This is just base level competence, and I'm happy with it. This is a totally competent point chaser! I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to find one. I like the way the ship controls, I think pivoting from shooting to just pure flying is clever, and I like the sort of frantic energy you get when you're trying to top your old scores. The way stuff chains is clever here, because you really need to stay on top of what you're destroying when to make sure that timer doesn't run out and your chain resets to zero. Rather than playing things safe, it forces you to keep moving and it adds this extra level of strategy which is nice. You actually don't want to go around and destroy everything as fast as you can. Leave some of the weak stuff floating around in case you really need a kill quickly.

But, again, there is a ceiling for me for point chasers and this one hit it roughly four hours in. You have this fun period when you're getting used to the controls, then figuring out the nuances, then getting better, then better, then you finally hit the goal you were going for and there's this profound sense of "wait do I really want to give this another run?" Like, it was good enough to get me interested but not good enough to keep me interested, and I definitely reached a point where I was like "eh, that's enough". You do all this work climbing the mountain, getting pretty high up, and then you get kicked back down to the base of things are you're just sort of looking up like "hey maybe one mountain climb is enough".

I get it is part and parcel to games like this, but it was really hard to motivate myself through that early game once I was able to consistently make level 10 (which is the final level of difficulty you get to). I have to do this again? I know I'm just whining about how games like this work at this point, and that's fine. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would see that complaint and think that's dumb. Certain people can sink hours upon hours of their lives into stuff like Pac-Man or Galaga, but it just isn't my style of game. Feel free to boost this up an extra couple of spots if you like this sort of thing because I do think it is fairly well put together all things considered. I just did not have any motivation to keep playing after a certain point. I like the simplicity here in terms of being able to immediately jump in and play, but I also feel like it could've used a bit more. A bit more "what" I'm not entirely sure, but I feel like a little something extra, somehow, would've kept my interest and elevated this from "pretty good" to legitimately "great".

That being said I don't regret playing this. I probably wouldn't have played it at all, honestly, if it wasn't entirely free and if it was just a catalogue game it would've been one of the last ones I played (if I stick to this project, that is) just because I know by looking at it that it isn't the kind of game I usually go for. But the controls are fun and it is well made and has a pretty solid core idea here. I've played a lot worse, and this is one of the games I was most pleasantly surprised by so far even if I don't think it is truly great.

Should You Play It? Sure! It's free. You can actually check this one out on the Switch if you really want to as I said before. I'm not sure it is the kind of game I'd want to actually pay for but again this style is usually a miss for me. I enjoyed it though.

Final Score: Going with a 6. Firmly "pretty good" even if I got to the point I just did not want to give it another go.

Games Completed: 31/142

Game Rankings:
31) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
30) Boogie Loops
29) Hidey Spot
28) Bub-O Collect
27) The Lushes Land
26) Nightingale
25) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
24) Recommendation Dog!!
23) Whitewater Wipeout
22) The Botanist
21) Snak
20) DYG
19) Lost Your Marbles
18) Grand Tour Legends
17) Demon Quest '85
16) The Fall of Elena Temple
15) Flipper Lifter
14) Questy Chess
13) Slitherlink PD
12) The Keyper
11) SKEW
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

You're probably right, but that still doesn't quite explain the four story people unless he was just asking friends for ideas because he couldn't think of enough puns.

Currently Playing: Hyper Meteor

What Is It? Asteroids without the shooting

Gameplay Overview: You have this little ship that you maneuver around using the crank. There are enemy ships and meteors flying around that are a mix of black and white. You destroy them by running into the white bits and get destroyed if you run into the black bits. You get more points if you can chain together enemies without going too long in between, so there is this sort of frantic element to things where you need to fling yourself at stuff quickly or lose your multiplier.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/hyper-meteor/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6fe9e812.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bccc675b.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/dadf0be6.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/126a8abe.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a11472a3.png

Thoughts:
-Hyper Meteor is now the 16th of the 24 Season 1 games Ive played. Ill jump back into the catalogue after this because as I mentioned the season games are pretty noticeably higher quality than the catalogue games and I dont want to run out too quickly.
-Ok so this is like asteroids without the shooting.
-Youre a ship and you need to run into various meteors and enemies. They all have weak spots, which are the white color of object and spots that you cant damage (which are black). Ram into white spots to destroy them and get points. Run into black spots to fail and get laughed at.
-Ok first run I nab a cool 200 points. What is the high score?
-93,333. So I guess you could say I sucked.
-Also hooray for online leaderboards! See other games? Was this so hard?
-Second run goes better and I figure you need to chain attacks together by smashing into stuff in quick succession. Also I get better at the crank and get up to 700 points which is good for 2075th place.
-Thats actually a shocking number of people that got over 700 points considering the total ownership of the console is at like 60k. But still, in your face other 58k people who are worse at Hyper Meteor than me!
-I forgot to mention the controls. You move around the ship via the crank, which works really well. B boosts you forward and A fires off a bomb which kills everything on screen. Those are very limited and you only get one at certain point bench marks, so you have to be careful when you use them.
-Aw yeah now over 2k points. Good for 425th place. IM COMING FOR YOU EDGRRR
-Not really I dont think Ill ever be able to get 93k. 10th place is only 24860, which seems like a more achievable goal.
-Also the sound on this is great. Good little backing track, sound effects, and I even like the voice over that tells you when you go up a level.
-A season game that is well put together and not a failed senior thesis project! Who wouldve guessed?
-Again, point chasers like this just arent my jam. So take everything Im saying and add like 50% more excitement to it. It seems pretty decent so far but Im not positive how long itll keep my interest.
-I like the enemy design in this game - each one feels different and adds something new. You have normal meteors (boring), big meteors that split into those little meteors (less boring), and then interesting stuff like these little triangles that sort of track you and have their weak spot on their backside, and a circle with a smaller rotating circle around it that is its only weak point. I like it when you get up to like level eight and there's crazy stuff everywhere.
-Ok so I finally got a really good run. My goal was to get in the top 100 and reach level 10 (which is the final level that just keeps going on) and I accomplish both with a nice score just a smidge under 9k. Puts me at 72.
-I've probably played for like close to four hours now without getting bored, which is crazy for me. It isn't my favorite but that is more to do with personal preferences than the game's quality here. This is a solid idea and a good execution of it.
-OH! I should mention this is the one title that's made its way off the Playdate, to my knowledge. You can find it on the Switch and the Switch version is apparently better, from what I've heard. It isn't the most complex game but it is a fun enough point chaser and if you are a fan of that you should probably check this one out!
-I'll give it another hour or so to see if I can top that high score and then call it quits. I might actually come back to this one later though which puts this one in rare company on the Playdate.

Time Played: Like four hours, with a lot of restarts if I wasn't happy with the amount of points I got on my first life.
High Score: 8753. Good for 72nd place! Not anywhere close to the top 10 though which seems like its impossible now. That 8.7k run was a really solid run on my part. It has been so easy to get into the top ten in other games because I feel like most people aren't trying. It says something this is the first "point chaser" I've played where I feel like a lot of people have been playing for a good amount of time.
Beaten? Close enough.
Grade: This is like a high 6 low 7. If you like point chasers it could go as high as 8 probably
Favorite Part So Far: I was playing and my kid was like "wow that music's really good". First game to impress the alpha generation on this console.